Bloomberg Set to Announce Weak Reduction Scheme
From itsgettinghotinhere.org:
On Sunday, April 22nd, New York City’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg will announce PlaNYC 2030 - one of the more advanced 25-year climate action plans put forth to date. After six months of work, the NYC team put together a plan that will reduce the city’s total emissions 30 percent by 2030. Earlier this week, Bloomberg’s office released a study that shows that NYC contributes 1% of the nation’s greenhouse gases.
The team at itsgettinghotinhere.org urge you to write Bloomberg and other city mayor’s to support this progressive initiative. The mayor is set to announce the comprehensive plan on Sunday at 1:00 PM.
PROGRESSIVE INITIATIVE? What?
A thirty percent reduction over twenty years is not even close to what is needed to stem the tide. Yes, do write Bloomberg! And tell him that we’re all absolutely screwed if we can’t hit a 80-90% reduction by 2030. Even with a 90% reduction by 2030, we very well may NOT keep the global temperature increase under 2 degrees Celsius. I’ve yet to see a global heating reduction scenario that calls for such a soft reduction. This is beyond pathetic. Bloomberg had better not get any good press for this bullshit. In fact, if people hail him an eco-hero or visionary, we’ll likely see other leaders adopt this same position, one that will commit the United States to a reduction that is only ONE-THIRD of what is necessary.
This is slippery-slope stuff here, folks. I wish the eco-community wouldn’t be satisfied with ’small advances’ like this. This is the absolutely perfect example of a pyrrhic victory–”a victory with a devastating cost to the victor.”
Even the usually grand Eco-Chick.com gave a positive spin to this announcement. Oh, that’s because itsgettinghotinhere is a Summer Rayne Oakes venture. Damn it all, but she should, and usually seems to, know better!
AAAAAGH! (I say this in my best Charlie Brown voice so you can really, really sense my frustration) WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!
PLEASE contact Bloomberg. Tell him he needs to STEP IT UP (even these guys need to accelerate their timetable but they’re on the right track) a whole lot!
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)
FAX (212) 788-2460
E-MAIL:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html
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I have no idea what this song has to do with this post, but I’m making it Song O’ the Day, regardless. If you love “The Cougar”, you’ll feel what I’m feeling. Push PLAY and rock the hell on (softly, mind you):
Technorati Tags: bloomberg, mayor-bloomber, climate-change, planyc-2030, global-warming
Tags: environment, news
Yeah, Tod! I get so pissed off about these huge celebration over these sort of ornamental gestures to reduce carbon emissions. Right: Tell Bloomberg that’s really nice and you’re really happy he cares, but 30 percent by 2030 is not exactly going to free the people.
But 30 percent in a quarter of a century is better than nothing, and sometimes these things have a way of building on themselves. Here in L.A., the Department of Water and Power first had a 20 percent renewable energy goal set for 2017; when other people saying they’d do the same by 2010, the DWP stepped it up and aimed for 2010, too (and they’re really going to do it).
I really enjoy your blog, by the way. More fun than your average eco-blog, and just as good for you.
Judith -
Okay, I have to agree with you. We need any and all progress so that we can hope for larger strides to be tacked on. I think this is true, and do understand endorsing Bloomberg, yet if we don’t IMMEDIATELY AND VOCIFEROUSLY demand more, I’m afraid we’ll get only what we get. Appeasement, after all, is the name of the political game, no? So, while I really don’t blame anyone for clapping at Bloomy’s announcement (and I am heartened by all progress, actually), I’ve taken it upon myself to be one of the heckling ‘not-enoughers’ - at least in my blog and online persona.
Thanks for the kind words. Your meth/gonzales piece is amazing. Your blog http://blogs.laweekly.com/judith_lewis/ is one of the best out there as you say what needs to be said to an audience that is among the largest and most influential. Keep stepping it up! Oh, and that piece on Avaaz - 100% dead on.
Ok, so I was in New York when this came out and had the nice opportunity to speak with some locals to see what their thoughts were.
Generally, their impressions were positive - with most of them bringing up the crazy bureaucracy present in the city. A theme that repeated again and again, was getting all of the different areas of town to commit to such a plan, and how difficult that would be.
So generally, I started to think hey this is a pretty big achievement.
But then I started thinking of it as a negotiation, a starting point, and my perspective changed a lot. I mean Bloomberg’s opening bid was 30 percent - which will most likely be reduced down to 10 or 15 percent.
If he had started with 50, or even 60 percent then we’d be ending up with around 30…. But, then again maybe people would have rejected it outright.
If he sticks to 30 percent and gets it - it is a fantastic result. But with a new mayor election coming, I doubt the 30 percent will stick… But that could also be an opportunity to get 40 - 50 percent using voter pressure.
Sorry for rambling.
larryO