Dear Anne,

Your New York State Senator is one of 18 legislators who showed exceptional leadership when it came to protecting the health of the environment this year by supporting all four of the environmental community’s priority Super Bills.

The Super Bills include:

*The Wetlands Protection Act

*The Bigger Better Bottle Bill

*The Global Warming Pollution Cap/Greenhouse Gas Pollution Control Act

*Net Metering Reforms

Please thank your New York State Senators for supporting these critical measures. Without his or her leadership, these bills may never have gotten as far as they did in the Senate. By taking the time to recognize your Senator’s support of the Super Bills, you’re telling our lawmakers that the environment is an important issue to you and to thousands of New Yorkers across the state. Click here to thank your Senator.

I believe I will! It is important to note that only one of these four Super Bills actually became law (the Net Metering Reforms) so we have a long way to go. More details on the bills, including their Assembly supporters, are available here.

If you are onboard with Al Gore’s challenge, let Obama, McCain, and your elected officials know by signing the MoveOn petition here. Let’s do this!!

…our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges — the economic, environmental and national security crises,” Mr. Gore said. “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”

He also points out that the more oil we use the higher the price goes, while the more solar we use the lower the price goes. The goal of our neighborhood solar forums is to inform homeowners interested in solar about the new tax credits and higher net metering limits just passed in New York, and encourage networking so they can share best practices and potentially approach installers as a group to negotiate costs. Stay tuned, we will definitely be doing more of this neighborhood-oriented energy education.

This speech by then-Lieutenant Governor David Paterson is from last year’s Step It Up rally. Love how he refers to global warming deniers as “fossils”!!

CUNY Graduate School of Journalism’s New York City News Service has asked us to find out how you feel about global warming.

In addition to being posted on their web-based wire service, survey results may be picked up by local print-based publications. Please respond in the comments, with whatever degree of anonymity you prefer; all replies will be forwarded.

2007 SECOND WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD
Northern Hemisphere Temperature Highest Ever

Frances C. Moore

With the record for 2007 now complete, it is clear that temperatures around the world are continuing their upward climb. The global average in 2007 was 14.73 degrees Celsius (58.5 degrees Fahrenheit) — the second warmest year on record, only 0.03 degrees Celsius behind the 2005 maximum. January 2007 was the hottest January ever measured, a full 0.23 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous record. August was also a record for that month, and September was the second warmest September recorded.

Looking at the northern hemisphere alone, 2007 temperatures averaged 15.04 degrees Celsius (59.1 degrees Fahrenheit) — easily the hottest year in the northern half of the globe since the record began in 1880, and more than a degree warmer than the 1951–80 average…

(Entire text available here. Data available here. Index of Earth Policy Institute resources related to Temperature and Climate here.)

The way this month has gone, including last night’s failed Nor’Easter (see Brooklyn Junction’s proposed temporary — we hope! — ban on the term), 2008 may prove to be the new hottest January. While it is difficult to imagine how this trend can be reversed and what we as individuals can do, the aforementioned Earth Policy Institute offers direction based on their vision of a sustainable economy. What’s the weather got to do with the economy? “Eco-Economy Indicators are the twelve trends the Earth Policy Institute tracks to measure progress in building an eco-economy. Taking the earth’s temperature tells us about the relative health of the planet.” (Well, yes!) The EPI website has videos, podcasts, and a library of articles with the appropriate mix of urgency, guarded optimism, and concrete suggestions:

The Earth’s capacity to support the economy continues to deteriorate. The gap between what we need to do to arrest the deterioration of the Earth and what we are doing continues to widen… Somehow we have to turn the tide. The purpose of the Earth Policy Institute is to provide a vision of what an environmentally sustainable economy will look like and a plan for how to get from here to there.

Highly recommended.