Many have asked how we fared in the midst of Hurricane Sandy. We have been quite lucky. The floodwaters stopped just a few blocks from our office, sparing this lovely old building from damage. Nevertheless, both the office and my apartment lost power for the entire workweek. With my trusty bicycle, I found places to work outside the dark zone, and found ways to pitch in on the relief efforts (including riding supplies out to a hardhit area with Time’s Up).
We decided to add the high water mark to our map of energy resources – view it at OpenGreenMap.org/nycenergy (you can even embed it in your own website or blog). It's stunning to see how and where the water rose and as you probably know, Sandy's become a broad call to action for a more resilient approach to planning for climate change. We're surveying Green Mapmakers now and hope to share effective mapping resources shortly.
As noted in our Post-Sandy newsletter, on Sunday Dec 2nd, we held the Adapting to Change Cycling Tour. Riders explored resilient solutions that reduce energy consumption and increase climate awareness. Speakers included JK Canepa of CARP, Dan Miner of Beyond Oil NYC and David Bergman of EcoOptimist. This ride built upon our ’10 Days of Climate Action’ prize-winning Green Culture Cycling Tour, and its resulting map. It includes sites from our Energy edition - you can download the 2006 version of this map under Info on the right sidebar, too.
Our December tour's press coverage includes a Bowery Boogie report by Lorie Greenberg & David Bergman on this ride and a Play and Ideas blog post by Benjamin Heim Shepard for this terrific report on the ride. Peter Shapiro's video featuring David Bergman's talk is below.
We've continued the conversation with different participants as we have found this builds momentum for action and synergizes our ability to foment social change:read more »