Author: Ann Privorotskiy

So apparently, plants can do it all. I knew that vegetation aided in ridding the air of pollutants, but I thought it was to a limited extent- not to up to 711,000 metric tons per year per urban city. I think the numbers in support for green roofs speak for themselves; if 20% of all buildings in DC built green roofs, the result on the decrease in air pollution would be the same as if we were to plant 17,000 street trees. In addition to all the air benefits that green roofs provide, I was sold by the practicality aspect of implementing them as well. The conventional roof lasts for about 20 years and when they need to be replaced, the old roof will take up space and leach pollutants; green roofs last 45 years longer and are therefore more cost effective. The further I read through the article, the more and more benefits I saw green roofs can offer- from the possibility of urban rooftop agriculture to positive effects on human health.

After reading about all of the great things green roofs do for us, I couldn’t seem to understand why there weren’t more of them in the city, and I was glad to see that addressed in the last paragraph. Strictly speaking in terms of money costs I understand that a green roof is more expensive at first glance but if you factor in the effects on stormwater, energy, and air pollution, it’s pretty fair game to say that green roofs are more cost effective in the long term. If we’re thinking about spending a little extra money on a green roof now, we won’t have to think of some even more drastic, and probably more expensive, method to combat increased levels of carbon dioxide when they get to a higher deleterious level. After looking at how green roofs would benefit NYC in particular, I found that their absorbent property is of integral importance to us.  Because the city is built on islands around a harbor and two rivers, we have long struggled with excessive run-off after heavy downpours, so our drainage systems are often overwhelmed and overflowed with raw sewage. Green roofs’ ability to alleviate this issue by being able to absorb up to 70% of the rainwater that would otherwise drain away, is one of the most helpful things to the city.

 

After reading this article on urban ecosystems, I was surprised yet again by how much I didn’t know. For instance, we are taught that global warming is a global phenomenon, so to read that cities have higher climate changes than the countryside alarmed me a little. Even more surprising was the fact that vegetation helps remove some of this heat by absorbing energy to fuel the evaporation process and by providing shade. I really liked that this paper made it a point to highlight the recreational and cultural values that urban ecosystems have to offer. I’m a firm believer in the psychological benefits that the outdoors provides and it’s a shame to see that constantly get overlooked when people try to look for a means to cope with stress or other issues. As someone who’s interested in a future in medicine, I was particularly struck by the statistic that patients in hospitals with rooms facing a park needed 50% less strong pain-relieving medication compared to patients in rooms facing a building wall.

As I read, I was trying to keep reminding myself that the study was conducted in Stockholm, not New York, and I definitely remembered that was the case when I read that the citizens of Stockholm “highly value their green spaces.” 90% of Stockholm residents visit parks at least once a year, 45% of so weekly, and 17% more than three times a week. Citizens of New York are always too busy for everything so I wouldn’t be surprised if those statistics for New York were to be significantly lower.

Another thing I liked about this paper was that it gave both sides of the argument and mentioned the problems that ecosystems can contribute in addition to all the benefits. The problems listed like urban smog and bad odors seem minuscule in comparison to the problems we’re causing to the ecosystems. I found it ironic how it says that cities were built to protect humans from nature, when it appears that it’s nature that needs protection from us now.

I found the last line of Chapter 9, “what has been destroyed can never be created again,” to be a particularly powerful closing sentence. McCully goes through all the different bird species that have either been hunted down or killed through pesticide consumption and it’s not like there’s a way to bring the extinct back to life. I never thought about there being any type of bird presence in the city besides the typical pigeon. To read about how owls are making a comeback seems strange to me because they seem so exotic for a location like New York. McCully mentions cormorant birds in Sheepshead Bay, which is my neighborhood. After Google imaging this species, it’s safe to say that I’ve never seen this sort of bird before in my life, which either means they’re no longer around, or I’m completely oblivious to my surroundings.

Reading about the conservation efforts made to stop hunting birds for the sake of hat production made me think about today’s PETA efforts to stop using animals for clothes production altogether. I’m guilty of wearing products made of animals, not necessarily birds, but the same principle still applies. It made me wonder if sheep were continued to be used in UGG production, would there be a point at which they’d be an endangered species? Additionally this made me think about how by where I work in Battery Park, there was a roaming turkey that would make guest appearances in the park whenever the weather would get warmer. After noticing I haven’t seen her this past summer, I googled her to find that she had been run over on the Upper East Side. It’s a shame that no action was taken to put the turkey in the appropriate environment, but even if the situation was taken care of I’m sure she would have ended up behind zoo cage bars.

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.

 

 

In the beginning of the chapter, McCully explores the personal significance that trees can have to someone. For that old man she encountered while trying to do her census, it was the fact that the tree has been around since the Revolutionary War, whereas for her, she was more interested in its pedigree as a native woodland. I never thought about how because trees live such extensive lives (so long as they are untouched) they live before us and even outlive us ultimately. They have historic value because you acknowledge they’ve been around longer than you have, and have a futuristic mystery because they’ll be around after you’re gone.

When reading about how people saw no issue in cutting down trees because they knew there were so many of them left, I thought it was interesting how we have the same mentality about that today as we did centuries ago. To us, seeing the occasional tree on a street corner feels like “oh, there’s so many trees, cutting a few down so I have looseleaf paper doesn’t seem so bad.” Every future generation will have a more and more inaccurate perception of what the norm is for tree population, because as these generations are born, they’ll be in a world where there are less and less trees.

Additionally, our society highly values instant gratification. We can’t actually see all the benefits that trees provide for us when they are left untouched, however, we can see the warmth trees provide us when they serve as fuel for a fireplace or the paper they provide us with when we need to print something. These secondary resources that are derived from trees serve their daily functions for us, so we give more value to having the tree exploited for its various resources than we do about the tree in its raw state.

It’s difficult for me to believe that the Manhattan I know and love used to be an area of beaches, wetlands, and forests. Not to say that I’m questioning the validity of Sanderson and Brown, it’s just that I solely recognize Manhattan as the city that never sleeps, and to see someone talk about how it used to be this untouched land seems bizarre. One of the big reasons that humans and animals differ is that humans are able to adapt their environment to their needs, as opposed to having to adapt themselves to match their environments. It’s never a unexpected to see a population enter untouched grounds and turn it into a bustling destination that no longer resembles anything close to what it used to prior to human interference.

I completely disagree with the idea that “by providing a vivid, ecologically sound, geographically referenced reconstruction of Mannahatta, we can encourage interest in conservation of wild places and wildlife in the city.” I’m sure on some subconscious level, every New Yorker is aware of the fact that the city was not born with a skyscraper on every block. We know that these developments are fairly recent- and for the most part we’re perfectly comfortable with that because we acknowledge that with technological advancements and an increasing city population, we should comfortably resort to further modernizing Manhattan to accommodate everyone. I don’t think that by showing people what Manhattan used to be like, people will all of a sudden begin to care and appreciate the conservation movement.

I acknowledge the growing depreciation of wildlife conservation but I think Miller’s article did a better job of solidifying that it’s an issue. I can’t seem to follow the logic that showing people a before picture of what the city used to look like, will make them care more. People will only care if you can convince them that these changes are relevant and directly impact their lives somehow. Without pointing out some direct, interactive correlation between individuals and the loss of wildlife, people will continue to disregard the issue.