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Toward a Clean Energy Future

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Bringing Green Principles Into the American Economy

Building a Sustainable Auto

Understanding Public Opinion About the Environment

NYC’s Environmental Finance BusinessTakes Another Step: The New YorkMercantile Exchange Goes Green ... for St.Patrick’s Day?By Steve CohenMarch 17, 2008 | 11:12 a.m.

Perhaps

in celebration of St. Patrick’s

Day, the New York Mercantile

Exchange will begin a market

to trade future and option

contracts for credits

representing reductions in

greenhouse gases and other

pollutants. This is part of their

Green Exchange initiative formed by a partnership between the Mercantile

Exchange and energy brokerage Evolution Markets.

What is this market selling?

In Europe, the European Community (the “government” that issues the Euro)

regulates carbon emissions. In the U.S. we haven’t gotten around to regulating

greenhouse gasses yet. Let’s hope we do before much longer. How it works in

Europe: Let’s say a European company emits 10 tons of carbon dioxide a year, but

under the rules they are allowed to emit 25 tons. They can sell their right to emit

the 15 tons they are not emitting to a company that that is exceeding its target. But

how does a company that needs to buy extra emission allowances find a company

that has some to sell? Who sets the price for these emission allowances? The

answer is that the market sets the price. On Monday, March 17th, one such market

began operating when the New York Mercantile

Exchange started selling option contracts for

emission credits.

They also provide a marketplace for futures on

carbon credits—basically a bet that traders make

on the future price of these credits. Futures are an

obligation to sell or purchase a fixed quantity of a commodity some time in the

future. Futures traders place bets on the price of that commodity in the future.

People buy future contracts to reduce their risk. If I had bought futures in gasoline

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More Columns >> a few years ago, I might be able to by gas for $2 a gallon today instead of $4 a

gallon. On the other hand, if the price goes down to $1, I still have to buy the gas at

$2.

In the United States, we do not yet regulate carbon dioxide, but we have been

regulating sulfur dioxide for a decade and a half. The Chicago Mercantile exchange

has been trading sulfur dioxide futures and options since 1993. As Barnaby J.

Feder wrote in The Times on November 29, 1992:

The (Chicago) Board of Trade's first environmental products are scheduled to start

trading next spring. They will allow utilities to buy and sell permits to emit specific

amounts of sulfur dioxide. The Environmental Protection Agency, which chose the

board over other exchanges to test the concept, hopes that the utilities that can

most efficiently invest to cut such emissions below the levels allowed for their

plants will do so and then profit by selling permits covering their unused emissions

allowance.

The key challenge, as with all contracts, is to attract enough traders so that anyone

can get a competitive bid or offer at any time. And, as with other contracts, the

exchange hopes that local traders will add liquidity to the market by buying and

reselling the contracts in an attempt to profit from changing perceptions of their

value as the specified date for delivery of the insurance risk or pollution permit

closes in.

While government in the U.S. does not yet regulate carbon dioxide, people in the

U.S. have already begun to buy “carbon offsets” to reduce their own “carbon

footprint:” In all likelihood sometime in 2009, we will begin to regulate

greenhouse gasses here in the United States and the value of CO2 allowances will

grow dramatically as we get serious about reducing global warming. In the

meantime, the Mercantile Exchange is getting a head start on this new business.

The Mercantile Exchange’s partner is a firm called Evolution Markets. This is a

private firm that specializes in Environmental Markets. According to their Web

site:

Evolution Markets is the world's highest volume environmental broker, having

facilitated more than $50 billion in trades of environmental commodities,

including more trades of Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) than any other

broker….Evolution Markets has been at the forefront of global greenhouse gas

emissions market development, assisting local, national and foreign governments

in designing effective and efficient carbon markets. We have also facilitated trades

that have met some of the market's most important milestones - including the first

trade of Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) under the Kyoto Protocol's "International

Emissions Trading" program, the first brokered trade of EU carbon allowances…

A number of the graduates of the Masters Program I direct at Columbia’s

School of International and Public Affairs work for another company in the

environmental securities business called Ecosecurities. According to their Web

site:

EcoSecurities is a leading company in the business of sourcing,

developing and trading emission reduction credits. EcoSecurities

structures and guides greenhouse gas emission reduction projects

from beginning to end, working with both project developers and

buyers of emission reduction credits. EcoSecurities works with


companies in developing and industrialising countries to create

emission reduction credits from projects that reduce emissions of

greenhouse gases. EcoSecurities has experience with projects in a wide

range of sectors, including renewable energy, agriculture and urban

waste management, industrial efficiency, and forestry.

The field of environmental finance is a fairly new and growing business. Like the

rest of the financial service business, some of its best firms are located here in New

York City. These firms depend to some degree on the seriousness of the world’s

governments in regulating pollution. Without firm regulation setting pollutant

“caps,” the value of pollution rights that are traded will be volatile and could

decline. I, for one, am counting on the fact that everyone needs to breath air and

drink clean water. In the long run, governments have no choice but get serious

about pollution control. As the billions of poor people all over the world develop

their economies—from China to India to Africa—I am hopeful that in the long run

we will learn how to develop in a way that doesn’t kill us or make us sick. If we do,

then these firms and this exchange can play a key role in making pollution

reduction as efficient as possible.

This content was provided for use by The New York Observer, specifically on

Observer.com by the scientists and researchers at Columbia University. Any

other use of this content without prior authorization from Columbia University

and The New York Observer is strictly prohibited.

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Governor Paterson’s Challenges and theCapacity for ComebacksBy Steve CohenMarch 19, 2008 | 7:52 a.m.

As David Paterson took the

oath of office as New York’s

55th governor earlier this

week, you could almost taste

the sense of relief in legislative

chambers. Our new governor

gave a remarkable, deeply

personal and engaging talk

and then left to face the challenges of rebuilding the broken machine of state

government.

With Wall Street melting down, the economy heading south, and the war in Iraq

continuing to drain the nation’s treasury and will, Governor Paterson faces a

budget gap estimated at $5 billion. Upstate New York has been in a

generation-long recession and now those of us in the City wonder if our own

remarkably resilient post- 9/11 era will end with a crash.

New York City and New York State have been counted out before, and have

demonstrated the capacity to come back. In the mid-1970’s, then-Governor Hugh

Carey, the city’s labor unions and financial industry got together with then

President Gerald Ford and figured out a way to dial back our near bankruptcy.

Some of us remember the summer of 1977 as

immortalized by sportscaster Howard Cosell’s

famous phrase that “the Bronx is burning” during

the Reggie Jackson-dominated World Series.

For many of us, that three-home-run performance

by Reggie and the Yankees' series win was the

turning point where the city started the long road

to recovery. It has been a comeback presided over

by all of our recent mayors—starting with Ed Koch,

then David Dinkins and then Rudy

Guiliani—culminating in the superb mayoralty of

Michael Bloomberg. Summer of 1977 was the



Will David Paterson be an ally in carrying out MichaelBloomberg's PlaNYC 2030?



More Columns >> Building a Sustainable Auto


summer of the Son of Sam, the .44-caliber killer

who drove people off the streets at night until he

was finally caught. It was the summer of a power

blackout that led to over 1,000 fires and nearly 4,000 arrests in two days of rioting.

In contrast, the 1965 blackout was known for the number of babies born nine

months later and the 2003 blackout was known for the free beer and ice cream

given out by the city’s store owners and bartenders.

The contrast between 1977 and 2003 charts a remarkable comeback and shows

that change is possible and that public-private partnership can really work. New

York City still has many more poor and homeless people than we should have, but

I don’t know too many people who would rather live in the New York City of 1977

then today’s city. (Of course, some people really liked disco and those bell bottom

pants.)

During hard times we often dispense with frills and luxuries and so the issue for

environmentalists is, is the issue of sustainability really seen as a central element

of economic growth, or will our hopes for a green New York go down the tubes?

The issue of the new governor’s record on environmental protection and

sustainability is worth raising. He has had a reasonable and progressive record in

his two decades as a state senator, but I would argue that his Senate record is

relatively meaningless.

The Democrats have been in the minority in the State Senate since the mid-1960’s.

Given the leader-dominated “three men in a room” style of governance in Albany,

Paterson was free to freelance any way he chose in an essentially symbolic Senate

seat.

So what can we expect? I think and hope, quite a bit. Governor Paterson was a

colleague on the faculty here at Columbia’s School of International and Public

Affairs. He is a talented and very smart man, with a generous spirit and a sure

sense of himself. Like Harry Truman and Gerald Ford before him, he finds himself

suddenly placed in a position he didn’t expect to be in.

He shows every sign of understanding the challenges he faces. I hope he decides

that the entire state needs a sustainability plan like PlaNYC 2030. One place to

start is to provide leadership on the issue of congestion in lower New York. Things

are so bad, even his predecessor as governor couldn’t get to his resignation

announcement on time.

Mass transit in New York City is underfunded and overcrowded. Congestion

pricing provides a way to reduce surface traffic and fund mass transit. If the state

government is going to veto the mayor’s plan, they have to develop a plausible

alternative. Along with the $5 billion budget gap, the first test of the governor’s

leadership will be on the key sustainability issue of traffic congestion and mass

transit. I hope and trust he will respond to the challenge.





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Will Paterson Endorsement Ease Congestion-Pricing Gridlock?By Steve CohenMarch 24, 2008 | 7:39 a.m.

The politics of congestion

pricing is nearing a boiling

point and opponents continue

to make the case for a

different approach to traffic

reduction.

There are, of course other

ways of reducing congestion, but Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal has the advantage

of generating new resources for mass transit.

On Friday, our new Governor, David Paterson, demonstrated political courage and

came out in favor of the plan to charge drivers for entering New York’s Central

Business district during the work day. He joins City Council Speaker Christine

Quinn and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno in support of the bill. Assembly

Speaker Sheldon Silver has yet to be heard from.

However, lots of prominent politicians are opposing all or part of the Mayor’s plan.

To congressman Anthony Weiner, the revenue part of the proposal is the root of

the problem. The congressman's argument, as reported in The New York Sun:

"This is where it matters that you have a certain amount of political

acumen. What the mayor does not understand, what his supporters in

the environmental community don't understand — we are playing

exactly into the Republican argument that if you want mass transit,

you should tax yourself," he said. "I am going to be hearing from my

colleagues in Washington, 'Well, you need $200 million less. You're

already collecting the $200 million.'"

Bloomberg referred to this comment as “one of the stupider things I’ve ever heard

said." I’m sure he has heard dumber comments, but just the same, Weiner’s

making a pretty feeble argument against congestion pricing. Most of New York

City’s transit system is locally financed, so we are already taxing ourselves. In fact

as conservatives are fond of reminding us, New York City is the most highly taxed

jurisdiction in the nation. The fact that we would be willing to assess yet another





More Columns >> fee on our overtaxed community only indicates how desperate we are to reduce

traffic.

If Congressman Weiner were really serious about the issue he’d be working to

increase transportation funding across the board. The nation’s roads, bridges and

mass transit are all underfunded. Potholes and falling bridges have become a way

of life on the American roadway. The best way to fund all transportation and

transport infrastructure would be a substantial increase in the tax on gasoline. The

tax should be set as a percentage of the price of gasoline and should be high

enough to build and maintain roads and mass transit. However, as Congressman

Weiner knows, with gasoline already reaching $4 a gallon, no one is going to

legislate an increased tax on gasoline.

With the deficit growing, the economy tanking and the financial cost of the war in

Iraq increasing daily, the federal treasury is an unlikely source of needed funds for

mass transit. So, where does the Congressman think the money will come from? If

Bloomberg is naive about the ways of Washington, what does that make Weiner?

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has been arguing against congestion pricing from

the start. According to Brodsky: "It is basically a tax, a new tax, and a tax which

falls disproportionately on the backs of . . . middle income and working families."

I guess he’s not referring to his own constituents since, according to

Transportation Alternatives: “Brodsky’s Manhattan-bound drive-to-work

constituents earn on average $176,231 annually—the highest of any New York

county in the metropolitan area.”

Data on those who drive to the Central Business district clearly indicate that most

of those who would be charged the congestion fee are nowhere near being

middle-income or working class. Some opponents worry that the charge will

penalize those that don’t work in the city, but need to take family members to the

hospital or to a doctor. One possible solution to that problem is to make the first

five trips in any calendar year free, and to provide a free pass for those with

medical or similar needs that require regular transport into the central business

district. A set of policies could be set on exemptions and a web-based exemption

application process could be used to efficiently eliminate charges.

Some critics think the economy is too fragile for a new fee. City Comptroller

William Thompson Jr. Supports congestion pricing, but suggests that the city

postpone congestion fees until the economy improves. He offers the following

amendments:

A More Equitable Charge: $5 for City Residents and $10 for Non-City

Residents

Accelerated Spending for Capital Projects and Service Improvements

before Instituting the Charge by Investing up to $500 Million

Guaranteed Maintenance of Effort for MTA Capital Program Funding

Pricing Flexibility

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said now is not the time to impose this kind of extra

tax burden. "Raising the cost of things in a recession is difficult," Corzine said. "It's

a difficult damp down for people already struggling."

Sheldon Silver wants low income workers that must drive into the city to get a


rebate on the fee.

The idea of pricing flexibility makes sense, but the notion that congestion pricing is

all cost and no benefit, ignores the monetary value of the time wasted in traffic. If

the fee is set high enough, the people paying it get an important benefit: The time

they save when congestion is reduced. If congestion pricing works, the time saved

may be more valuable then the fee paid. If you make $25 an hour, a ½ reduction in

travel time is worth $12.50. The time of many of the people stuck in traffic is worth

more than the fee that will be charged. The idea that the people who can pay

$30-$50 a day to park in Manhattan will be burdened by a congestion fee doesn’t

make sense.

While a tax is a tax—congestion pricing is actually a charge for using a scarce

resource that once was free. Clean water out of our kitchen faucets used to be free:

Now, we pay a water bill. Television used to be free, now most people pay a pretty

hefty cable bill to get more channels. Space on the streets of New York’s Central

business district has become too scarce to give out for free. In order to keep traffic

moving on those streets we need to figure out a way to ration it. Congestion pricing

is one way to do that.

Mike Bloomberg has had the courage to get out in front on this issue and lead. We

now see that Quinn, Bruno, Patterson are also behind the plan. This of course

leaves the often inscrutable Shelly Silver as the last remaining major hold-out.

Perhaps if he manages to veto the bill, we can start saying that those stuck in

midtown traffic are being “silvered.” With the deadline for federal funding to

implement congestion pricing fast approaching, it’s crunch time for the city’s best

chance to reduce congestion. It will be a small miracle if that dysfunctional group

up in Albany can actually pass something this creative, but the time for bobbing

and weaving is coming to an end.

I am grateful for the research assistance of Sara Schonhardt, Master of

International Affairs student, Columbia’s School of International and Public

Affairs.





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The Good News About New York City's WaterBy Steve CohenMarch 27, 2008 | 11:09 a.m.

With all the furor over the

economy, congestion pricing

and the philandering ways of

New York’s governors, we

forget sometimes that we are

actually capable of acting like

a real community and building

for the future. I say

sometimes, because, while this

city has a magnificent system

for delivering fresh water to its people, it has one of the worst solid waste

management systems imaginable. Today let’s focus on the good news, New York

City’s water supply system. I’ll get to the garbage soon enough.

New York gets its water from two upstate reservoir systems that it owns and

operates. To keep the sources of water clean, the city works upstate to purchase

land and ensure best-management practices by local farmers and other residents.

According to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s 2006

water supply report, “the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has

developed a $19.5 billion Capital Investment Strategy for the next decade, the

majority of which will be used to upgrade and add to existing infrastructure and

guarantee that we can fulfill our mandate of delivering quality drinking water to

New York for years to come.”

New York’s water system provides more than 1.1

billion gallons of water daily to around

eight million New York City residents and

one million residents in Westchester,

Putman, Ulster and Orange counties.

The two tunnels that carry our water to us

represent one of the most impressive public works projects in the world. Water

Tunnel No. 1 was completed 1917, Water Tunnel No. 2 was completed 1936 and

Water Tunnel No. 3 began 1970, and with luck will be completed in 2020.

According to the water industry’s Web site:





More Columns >> New York's City Tunnel No. 3 is one of the most complex and intricate

engineering projects in the world. Constructed by the New York City

Department of Environmental Protection, the tunnel will eventually

span 60 miles and is expected to be complete by 2020.

One reason we are building a new water tunnel is the hope that over the next

century we can repair the other two tunnels. Some experts estimate that about a

third of the water that we draw from our upstate system leaks before it gets to our

faucets. In fact, since the late 1980’s, the Delaware Aqueduct, a piece of vital

infrastructure that carries half of the city’s water, has been leaking between 10 and

36 million tons of water each day. The city is not waiting for the third water tunnel

to be completed to plug this leak—a new project was just started to fix this

problem.

While we may lose a lot of our supply, the quality of our water is quite good. As

Elizabeth Royte wrote last year in her wonderful New York Times piece, “On

the Water Front”:

The upstate water is of such good quality, in fact, that the city is not

even required to filter it, a distinction shared with only four other

major American cities: Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland,

Ore. New Yorkers drink their water from Esopus Creek, from

Schoharie Creek, from the Neversink River, straight from the city’s

many reservoirs, with only a rough screening and, for most of the year,

just a shot of chlorine and chasers of fluoride, orthophosphate and

sodium hydroxide.”

Story continues below map.


The city’s filtration exemption from the E.P.A. saves it from the cost of building a

$6 billion to 8 billion water filtration plant for the water that comes from the

Catstkill and Delaware watersheds located west of the Hudson River. It would cost

about $1 billion a year to pay the debt service and operating costs of that plant. A

majority of our water comes from west of the Hudson. The rest of our water comes

from the Croton Watershed up in Westchester and Putnam counties. Currently the

city is spending over $1 billion to build a water filtration plant under the Moshulu

Golf Course in the Bronx to protect our water supplies that come from east of the

Hudson.

The city is working hard to protect the waters it doesn’t need to filter. According to

the commissioner of New York's Department of Environmental

Protection, Emily Lloyd:

In order to preserve this remarkable asset, and prevent the need for an

expensive filtration plant for the Catskill and Delaware water systems,

the city enforces an array of environmental regulations designed to

protect water quality while encouraging reasonable and responsible

development in the watershed communities. It also invests in

infrastructure—such as wastewater treatment facilities and septic

systems—that shield the water supply, while working with its upstate

partners to develop comprehensive land-use practices that curb

pollution at the water’s source.

The city has spent over $1 billion during the past decade in the communities near

the water supply to keep development from ruining the water. This is of course

cheaper then the billion dollars per year that a filtration plant would cost.

Most of New York City’s water supply is protected and filtered by the natural


processes of upstate ecosystems. To environmental economists, nature’s work that

protects our water is an “environmental service.” Because the price of a filtration

plant is known, we can estimate the monetary value of the services provided to

filter our water. This comes to $1 billion per year minus the $100 million or so we

spend each year to protect the upstate ecosystems. This is $900 million a year of

found money that we will lose if we don’t protect these fragile ecosystems. It’s a

graphic illustration of the point that what is good for the environment will often be

good for our bank account. Sustainable development is more than a slogan—it is a

principle of good government and sound fiscal management. New York’s water is a

good news story that will only stay good if we pay attention and protect it from

harm.



Affairs.

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Understanding Public Opinion About

Last Week to Pass Congestion PricingBy Steve CohenMarch 31, 2008 | 6:56 a.m.

The "final" federal deadline of

April 7 is approaching for the

federal subsidy of $354

million to set up a

congestion-pricing system for

Manhattan’s Central Business

District.

In these tough budget times

the plan would produce an

estimated $4.5 billion over the next five years for improved mass transit. It is the

only source of funds available to reduce the M.T.A.’s dependence on fares and debt

to improve transit. Even if the amount of funding ends up lower, it is still critical,

found money.

It’s also money coming from the right place. People and goods coming into

Manhattan during the work day should pay more for the right to come here. That

money is an appropriate source of subsidy for mass transit. Mass transit is the

most energy-efficient and socially responsible way to move around this region.

People who choose to drive should and already do pay tolls to make mass transit

better and cheaper. Those that come to Manhattan’s Central Business District

should pay this fee in addition to tolls.

This is a critical moment for the city and its

potential for long-term growth. New York City

needs better subways and buses—faster, more

frequent and more comfortable trains and buses.

Congestion and the price of gas and parking makes

mass transit the only option for most New Yorkers.

But we all know that mass transit in New York City

is a crummy ride. Delays, crowding, and grime can

make you question your sanity during rush hour in

the City. This is the only chance for the funds

needed to improve mass transit.

If the fee is high enough, and I think it will be

raised over time, it will improve the time it takes to





More Columns >> the Environmentmove around on the surface, and generate even

more money for mass transit. The Mayor’s bill can use improvement and I assume

it will be improved by:

Raising the fee for those coming over Port Authority

crossings from New Jersey- otherwise they pay

nothing.

Allowing low income drivers to get a rebate on their

taxes.

Ensuring that the lock box on these funds is truly

politico-proof: this money should only spent on

incremental mass transit capital improvements. Not

to replace other funds promised—but to provide new

funding.

Providing residents of New York State with five free

passes a year to the congestion zone.

Allowing medical patients in the congestion zone

with exemptions during their treatment.

In the end, we are in the shaky hands of our elected leaders. Michael Bloomberg,

Christine Quinn, David Paterson and Joe Bruno have provided leadership on this

critical issue. Even out-of-town guests like Barack Obama have expressed

support for congestion charges.

Anthony Weiner has disappointed us with his lack of foresight and blatant political

posturing. Shelly Silver, knowing his members are nervous about voting for this

charge is characteristically holding out for the best possible deal. Will New York

seize this opportunity or lose this once in a generation chance to make things

better?

Modern economies are built on mobility. While it’s true we use e-mail and cell

phones to communicate more than ever, human beings like hanging out together.

It’s why people will fly all day for a two-hour business meeting. We simply get

more done and communicate better when we are in the same room, sharing a meal

and catching all the nonverbal expressions you can’t see unless a person is sitting

right next to you.

New York City is the most international place in the world. In the 2000 census,

about 40% of the people who lived here said they were born in other countries.

That does not include the people who are here illegally and tourists from all over

the world. New York is the world’s capital and town square. We remain the world’s

capital because people like to come here. We won’t stay that way if it takes two

hours for those ubiquitous double-decker busses to get from Times Square to So

Ho. People won’t come if we don’t improve the quality of mass transit and reduce

travel time on the surface.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has provided real leadership on this issue, and as he has

correctly observed—this is a survival issue for New York City. It’s time for the City

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Wasted: New York City's Giant Garbage ProblemBy Steve CohenApril 3, 2008 | 6:51 a.m.

New York City’s 8 million

residents and millions of

businesses, construction

projects and visitors generate

as much as 36,200 tons of

garbage every day.

The city’s Department of

Sanitation handles nearly

13,000 tons per day of waste

generated by residents, public

agencies and non-profit corporations; private carting companies handle the

remainder.

During the twentieth century, the City relied on a number of landfills for garbage

disposal. Then, in December 2001, the city’s last garbage dump, Fresh Kills

Landfill in Staten Island, closed. In response, we adopted a 20-year plan for

exporting waste.

The city’s annual bill for collecting and disposing residential trash jumped from

about $658 million in 2000 and to about one and a quarter billion dollars in 2008.

The cost of disposal has grown from $300 million in 2005 to about $400 million

today. While some of that is inflation, most of it is due to the higher cost of

transporting and landfilling garbage out of state.

The City’s long-term plan is to reduce costs by

recycling more, reducing waste and building a

waterfront waste transfer system less dependent

on trucks and able to use containers to ship

garbage by barge and train further away to cheaper

dumpsites.

It is hard to imagine a more environmentally damaging waste-management system

than the one we have in New York. Actually, it’s not so hard to imagine, if you look

back and remember the time when we dumped our garbage into the ocean, or used

incinerators in the basements of apartment buildings to burn garbage at night.

Today, we collect garbage with trucks that use high-polluting diesel fuel and then



A sign at the entrance of the Fresh Kills landfill in March, 2001.The site would be pressed for service sorting through the debris of the Sept. 11 attack, but has otherwise been closed since then.



More Columns >> dump that garbage onto the floor of waste transfer stations that are typically

located in poor neighborhoods. We then scoop the garbage up off the floor and

load it onto large trucks that also burn high-polluting diesel fuel and ship it to

landfills and waste to energy incinerators located away from New York City.

While we own our entire water system, our waste system leaves us at the mercy of

the private marketplace and the whims of Congress and other states. The current

system of waste export leaves the city vulnerable over the long run. It is harder to

site landfills in this region than it used to be. Political opposition to landfilling is

growing in many dump site communities. Bills are regularly brought before

Congress that would authorize local governments, state governments, and

governors to restrict or prohibit the receipt of out-of-state waste.

Though the passage of such bills is far from certain, the possibility of passage over

the next twenty years is substantial enough to warrant concern. Similarly, stricter

regulations on new landfills by federal and state Environmental Protection

Agencies could increase the cost of new landfills and limit future landfill capacity.

Finally, landfill operators will certainly raise prices over time, and state and

municipal governments will likely enact taxes on waste disposal.

Why do New Yorkers create so much garbage? Well there are a lot of us and New

Yorkers are busy people— we toss garbage causally and we don’t like to sort our

garbage. We prefer not to think about garbage or where it will end up. I think we

have this fantasy that those green plastic mounds of garbage bags on the street are

magically transported to some mythical solid waste heaven.

New York’s elected leaders know that waste is a no-win issue. As long as the cost

increases of exporting waste are gradual, it is unlikely that enough political noise

will be generated to induce a sitting mayor to rethink waste export. No Mayor in

his or her right mind will try to build a waste incinerator or landfill in or near the

city.

Still, the technology of waste incineration has advanced dramatically since we

stopped using those horrible apartment incinerators in the 1960's. In Japan, 70

percent of all waste is burned and generates electricity in the process. While

incineration pollutes the air, it is less polluting than transporting waste in

diesel-fueled trucks to leaking out-of-state-landfills.

What is the solution? In 2003 I proposed barging our garbage to waste-to-energy

plants located in some of the economically distressed cities along the Hudson

River. This could provide jobs and cheaper power to towns that could really use

them. While I still like that idea, no one else did.

The next idea I’d like to propose is to develop community-based

waste-management facilities. Perhaps smaller scale waste to energy plants coupled

with recycling facilities and anaerobic digesters (a form of automated compost

facility) could be located in all 59 community board districts in the city. Of course,

we would lose economy of scale in managing these small facilities, and some

neighborhoods would have trouble finding a place to put them. Still, it may be a

good time to develop the technology to make smaller, cost-effective waste facilities.

If everyone had to manage their own garbage, maybe we’d figure out a way to make

less of it.

MORE: FRESH KILLS LANDFILL | GREEN | SOLID WASTE | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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The Dysfunctional Death of Congestion PricingBy Steve CohenApril 8, 2008 | 7:48 a.m.

"Shelly just came out of our

conference and said our

conference does not have the

support to bring this to the

floor,” Democratic

Assemblyman Mark Weprin

yesterday told reporters

after a meeting with

Speaker Sheldon Silver

and Assembly democrats

about Mayor Bloomberg's congestion-pricing bill. “I want to be clear that

the conference was overwhelmingly against it,” he further said.

To say that congestion pricing died because the Assembly members were against it

is of course true, but not the point. When items are important to Speaker Silver he

has this habit of “leading” his conference. He will maintain that his style is to

engage his members and compromise, and his ability to bully the legislature is

overstated. That is, of course, ridiculous—the Speaker usually gets what he wants.

The bottom line is that Shelly Silver killed congestion pricing.

The fact that it didn’t even come up for a vote tells you that this is isn’t about

democracy and accountability, but more of the dysfunctional, disingenuous politics

we’ve all gotten used to in Albany.

At least here in New York City we had a vote and

30 council members voted for the bill while 20

voted against it. Even the State Congestion

Commission that Mr. Silver helped create managed

a vote on Jan. 31, when they stood 13-2 in favor of

congestion pricing. In the legislature, they don’t

bother to vote in public, they just pronounce the

bill dead and move on to the next item of business.

While Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal was far from

perfect, and he and his people obviously failed to

make the sale with the legislature, what comes



Sheldon Silver at the State House in Albany.





next? Do we just ignore the congestion and hope

that the million people moving to the city in the

next twenty years decide to go somewhere else? Is

that the Assembly’s idea of sound economic development policy? Are they trying to

make sure that downstate starts to depopulate like upstate? I’ll be interested in

seeing Speaker Silver’s proposal to fund mass transit and reduce traffic in New

York City. Obviously, solving the City’s transit problem is less important to the

Speaker than playing politics. Using his typical rope-a-dope style, he let this bill die

the death of a thousand cuts. Why was there no effort to develop an alternative that

might still manage to move the process forward and allow the city to receive the

$354 million dollars of federal aid? Why was the alternative to the Mayor’s creative

proposal ... nothing?

Perhaps some time soon we’ll start to wake up and decide that New York State

really needs a government. We need to take on the issue of economic and

environmental sustainability—which are really one and the same. We need to

invest in green jobs and start attracting business and people back to New York

State. Instead of a government in Albany we have this pork-laden,

patronage-packed, unethical joke of a legislature. It’s a government that can’t pass

a budget on time, has us all in hock to special interests and can’t even manage to

vote on an issue as important as transportation in Manhattan.

New York City is growing because it is an exciting place to be and because business

and government are slowly learning to work together. The city succeeds in spite of

the mess in Albany. Unfortunately, the communities up state are faring less well.

They need a state government that comes up with creative new approaches to

attracting business and people. Instead, they’ve got a state government that seems

better at killing creative ideas than coming up with them.

Yesterday’s non-decision on congestion pricing shows that Governor Patterson has

a real challenge on his hands. Can he turn the place around and create a state

government that is up to the challenges of the 21st century? Judging by the

congestion pricing debacle, it doesn’t look promising.

MORE: CONGESTION PRICING | GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | SHELDON SILVER | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Green Commerce District Grows on the Lower East SideBy Steve CohenApril 11, 2008 | 8:00 a.m.

I stumbled into my first class

in Environmental Politics at

SUNY/Buffalo in the Fall of

1975 and first went to work for

the federal Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) in

1977, and if you told me back

then that thirty years later

they would replace pickles and

blintzes with eco-fashion on

the Lower East Side—I would

have thought you were nuts. I also would not have had the slightest idea what an

eco-fashion was.

Fortunately, Sara Schonhardt, a graduate student at Columbia University, joins me

on this piece, and helps explain what it means to shop green.

It turns out that New York City is fast developing a green shopping district. To

learn more about green commerce in New York City checkout the Green Apple

Map.

Venture into many of the small shops between East Houston and Delancey and

you’re likely to find a new world of environmentally friendly fare, from leather-less

shoes to organic stockings to dairy-free

cheesecake.

As Jill Fehrenbacher, a green-design consultant

and graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of

Architecture and Urban Planning, told us by

e-mail: “I live in the lower east side, and I think my

little neighborhood is the center of the universe for

eco-friendly shopping. Within a three block radius we have three eco-friendly

clothing boutiques – Kaight, Ekovaruhuset and Organic Avenue; a vegan shoe

store, Moo Shoes; Whole Foods Market; and tons of vegetarian/vegan restaurants,

including Teany, Tien Garden and Babycakes.”

Fehrenbacher, who founded Inhabitat.com, a blog devoted to tracking innovations


+Enlargeleslieannprice via flickr.com



More Columns >> in sustainable design, says being green is about being conscious of one’s

consumption and the impact one’s lifestyle has on the planet.

Denise Mari, co-founder of Organic Avenue, says the declining state of the

planet shows the necessity of promoting organic, healthy living. “We like to blow

conceptions of what raw, organic and vegan means.”

The native New Yorker says the city is warming up to an environmentally friendly

lifestyle and supporting shops like Organic Avenue, which sells hemp and organic

clothing, raw food, live produce and hosts “consciousness-raising events.”

In a March 6 interview with a reporter on the release of the 2008 Zagat Shopping

Guide, Nina Zagat, the guide’s co-founder, said: “One of the things we found this

year is how important it is to New Yorkers that the places they shop are

ecologically sound.” Seventy-six percent of voters said they desire shops that are

eco-friendly. So among the 2,463 stores this year’s Zagat Guide highlights, several

sell “green” goods.

Eco-friendly designers include Donna Karan and Ekovaruhuset, both with

boutiques in New York. Karan’s UrbanZen boutique on Greenwich Street

sells high-end green fashions, while Ekovaruhuset’s line was featured at New York

Fashion week in February.

The Zagat Guide also mentions Gominyc in the East Village, which sells organic

cotton jeans and tops, vegetable-tanned leather shoes, and household items made

from recycled goods. The shop’s unofficial motto: "It's not cheesy being green."

Del Forte Denim, sold in shops on the Lower East Side, makes 100 percent

organic cotton jeans and has partnered with The Sustainable Cotton Project, which

builds bridges between farmers, manufacturers and consumers of certified,

organically grown cotton.

The eco-fashion drive gained prominence in 2006, when designer and

animal-rights activist Stella McCartney launched a vegan-friendly line of

accessories she calls cruelty free, meaning nothing is made using leather or animal

products.

“I'm not trying to take over the world, but I do want to show that accessories can be

made from a more ethical viewpoint – and can be sexy and cool,” McCartney told

Women's Wear Daily in an interview in 2006.

On April 24, Emerging Green Builders, a committee of the United States Green

Building Council will host Project Earth Day, a fashion show dedicated to the

promotion of “green design, innovation and environmental responsibility.”

What are the specifics of green fashion? It’s a pretty wide-ranging definition that

varies by company. Here are some of the factors that help define green fashion:

- Cruelty-free (vegan friendly) = made without the use of animal products.

- Eco-friendly = recycled clothing, clothing made from biodegradable, sustainable

material.

- Carbon neutral = production offsets the clothing’s carbon footprint.

- Campaign-based = clothing that seeks to promote a message about climate

change.


Designer Monique Péan is an example of the latter. She says she aims to raise

awareness about the human impact on climate change through her jewelry

collection, which utilizes animal products purchased from subsistence hunters in

Shishmaref, Alaska, where melting sea ice threatens human and animal

settlements.

Why does this matter? Is all of this just some of the usual trendy nonsense, or does

it have substantive meaning? I think it matters, because the market matters. The

success of these businesses is an indication that environmental awareness is

growing. Sustainability is part of the language of commerce. Businesses seek a

“green image” because it helps them make money. It helps them make money

because it is a sign of a sound, well managed business. The message to consumers

is: “If that store cares about the planet, maybe they will care about me. Maybe they

won’t rob me.” It also conveys idealism and a sort of wholesomeness—and while

that doesn’t appeal to everyone, it does increase consumer attraction to a store or

product.

The other reason it matters is, that just like that ancient time before we had a bank,

drugstore, and cappuccino place on every other block, districts make cities unique

and attract people to them. It looks like parts of the Lower East Side stretching into

the East Village are becoming a green shopping district. A green business district is

one more stop on those double-decker busses and a way to suck more of those

Euros, yen and yuan out of the wallets of tourists. Let’s face it, the diversity and

street life of this city is what attracts people here—and green shopping can do its

part.

MORE: DEL FORTE DENIM | DONNA KARAN | EKOVARUHUSET | GREEN | KAIGHT | ORGANIC AVENUE | STELLAMCCARTNEY | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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New York City Reaches For the Sun; But For Now, We're Not Even CloseBy Steve CohenApril 14, 2008 | 6:56 a.m.

Last week Mayor Bloomberg

announced that the

Department of Citywide

Administrative Services

(DCAS) would request

proposals from private

developers to enter into a

20-year deal with the city to

buy, install, own and maintain

solar panels on city-owned

buildings in New York’s five

boroughs.

The goal is to deliver two megawatts (MW) of solar power to city-owned buildings.

In 2007 New York City was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E) as

one of 13 cities to help build the country’s solar-energy market. As part of this

partnership, the city set a goal of increasing its photovoltaic cell capacity from 1.1

MW in 2005 to 8.1 MW by 2015.

This is of course a small drop in a very large bucket. According to Con Ed’s

Web site:

New York’s energy use has reached unprecedented levels. For the year

2007, Consolidated Edison Company of New York’s customers used

62,591 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity, which eclipsed the

previous record of 61,608 GWh set in 2005. This level of use is more

than 23% higher than the 50,837 GWh used in 1997. A gigawatt is a

rate of energy production equal to 1,000 megawatts. According to the

latest available national data, Con Edison’s record delivery surpasses

the annual electrical usage of the entire state of Colorado (49,734 GWh

in 2006) or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (55,850 GWh in

2006).


+Enlargekevinthoule via flickr.com



More Columns >> I provide these data only to communicate a sense of scale. One gigawatt equals one

thousand megawatts. The tiny contribution of solar power is dwarfed by the

growth of electrical demand in New York City. Still, you’ve got to start somewhere.

There are two ways we measure electrical power use, annually (as we did earlier)

and based on peak demand (as we do in Con Ed’s Peak Load chart). Peak demand

is important because you have to provide enough power to meet demand when

everyone wants to use it. Like a shopping mall’s parking lot, you need enough

spaces for the day before and day after Christmas. In the power business, you need

enough power for the hottest day in August. Both peak load and annual use are

growing in New York City.

Why is power use growing? It is partially due to population growth but largely due

to the growth of electrical devices in our homes. The growing number of

computers, air conditioners, Ipods, CD players, TVs, microwaves and videogames

are increasing our need for power.

So why is solar making such a pathetic contribution to meeting our power needs?

Is solar power for real? The short answer is yes. Solar cells are coming down in

price, and government tax incentives, higher oil costs, and fears of global warming

are all contributing to the growth of solar power.

New York City provides some challenges to the use of solar power that other cities

do not present. While most of the land in New York City sits beneath single family

homes, most of the people in New York City live in apartment buildings. Many of

our apartment buildings do not have the space and sunlight needed for current

solar technologies to provide enough power to warrant investment.

However, the technological base for solar power is starting to change. While we

once needed an entire room to house a computer that had less memory than the

lap top (or even the Blackberry) you are probably reading this piece on, a

revolution in miniaturization has shrunk the world of electronic devices. Many

engineers think this will soon happened to photovoltaic or solar technology.

Despite the nearly complete absence of federal funding for solar energy research,

some of our best scientists and engineers are working to improve solar cells.

(Watch a video and read an article about this progress in last year's

Science Daily.)

In fact, G. Pascal Zachary reported in a New York Times article this past

February that a number of Silicon Valley’s chip designers are now working on solar

cell technology. That piece noted that both solar and computer chip technologies

were silicon-based and that to some chip engineers, solar cells were really a type of

“chip.” Some solar enthusiasts see solar power as inevitable and cite its

impressive recent growth rate as evidence that we will soon be living in a solar

powered world.

And even without new technology, other analysts see room for increased

use of solar energy in our energy mix.

I agree that solar energy has enormous potential. My engineering colleagues at

Columbia tell me that the earth absorbs much more energy in the form of sunlight

than we could ever need to power our homes and businesses. The problem is we

don’t know how to efficiently collect that energy and store it. The technology of

solar cells must become more efficient and practical and the power we take from

the sun must be stored in a more cost effective battery.


How do we get from here to there? I think the development of new carbon-free,

solar-based energy technology is the single most important scientific challenge the

United States (and the rest of the world) now faces. Low cost, decentralized energy

would change the way we live. We would no longer be dependent on foreign oil. We

would no longer need to pollute the planet by mining and burning fossil fuels.

Imagine if all of the power use in your home could be fueled by a set of solar cells

that could fit on a single window pane? If you think it’s impossible, let’s imagine

it’s the year 1950 and someone tells you that some day you will carry a telephone in

your pocket that is smaller than a wallet—and it would work anywhere. Or you will

carry 5,000 songs and 150 movies in a machine that is no larger than that tiny

phone.

The next President and Congress should put together a big pile of cash, a bunch of

tax incentives and then set a moon-landing type national goal for solar power.

Currently, the energy companies and antigovernment ideologues have blocked

significant federal funding for solar research. If we are to move forward on this,

these anti-solar forces will need to be countered by the economic interests of

insurance companies and other businesses that are being damaged by global

warming and high energy costs. This is a critical moment for America’s

technological and economic future. A lot rides on what Congress and the new

President manage to accomplish in 2009.



Affairs

MORE: CON EDISON | GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | SOLAR POWER | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Water Bottles, Water Bottles EverywhereBy Steve CohenApril 7, 2008 | 8:04 a.m.

While New York City has

terrific drinking water, many

of us still buy and drink

bottled water. Some

resourceful types carry around

reusable containers and fill

them with tap water, but many

of us buy new bottles water at

the store, often once a day or

more. My colleague Eleanor Sterling, the Director of Graduate Studies for

Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology and the

Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum

of Natural History, is the curator of a wonderful exhibit at the Museum called,

“Water: H20 = Life." According to the bottled-water facts and figures

presented in that exhibit:

Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make

water bottles, but in the U.S., less than 20 percent of these bottles are

recycled.

The total estimated energy needed to make, transport, and dispose of

one bottle of water is equivalent to filling the same bottle one-quarter

full of oil.

An estimated 40 percent of bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered

tap water.

Today, consumers worldwide spend as much as 100 billion U.S. dollars

on bottled water.

Of course, it wouldn’t be so bad if the bottles didn’t end up in the waste stream and

were instead reused or at least recycled. Unfortunately, in New York State, we only

pay a nickel deposit on bottles that contain carbonated beverages. Water, juice and

sports drinks are exempt. It must be something in the bubbles that makes requires


+Enlargevia flickr.com



More Columns >> the deposit?

According to the Web site of the New York State Department of

environmental Conservation:

The New York State Returnable Container Act, also known as the

"Bottle Bill", has been a tremendous success. Over the last 25 years it

has achieved significant impacts to create a cleaner and healthier New

York. The Bottle Bill has: reduced roadside litter by 70%; recycled 90

billion containers, equal to 6 million tons of materials, at no cost to

local governments; saved more than 52 million barrels of oil; and

eliminated 200,000 metric tons of greenhouse gasses each year.

However, changes in the beverage market over the last three decades

have limited the success of the Bottle Bill. When the Bottle Bill was

passed in 1982 non-carbonated drinks like iced teas, sport drinks and

bottled water made up on a small fraction of the beverage market.

Today, these drinks make up more than 25% of the market. If the

Bottle Bill is expanded to include non-carbonated drinks, it can:

recycle an additional 90,000 tons of materials every year at no cost to

local governments; save another 1 million barrels of oil annually; and

eliminate 80,000 tons per year of greenhouse gasses.

This leads to another question worth asking: Why is the deposit only a nickel? At a

minimum we should raise the deposit to make up for lost value due to inflation.

We started collecting deposits in 1982. A nickel in 1982 would be worth 11 cents

today. We also all know that even at a dime, many people would still through their

bottles in the trash. Why not raise the deposit to at least a quarter—if not a dollar.

At a dollar or even a quarter, more people would take the trouble to sort the bottle

from other trash and redeem the deposit.

New York is a complicated place to live and people consider conveniences like

bottled water a way to simplify things. For some people, carrying around a

reusable water container is just one more thing to remember and one more thing

to lose. It’s a waste of effort to oppose convenience. All I’m saying is that people

should be made to pay for that convenience. The full cost of that water should be

added to the price of water. Not just the price to bottle the water and ship it to

you—but the cost of its carbon foot print and its disposal. Unredeemed deposits

should be used to pay for waste disposal and for projects to reduce carbon dioxide

emissions. Bottles that are redeemed should be reused or recycled.

We are a species that leaves a mark on this planet—we can’t help but have an effect

on the environment. I don’t think it’s realistic to think we can eliminate that

impact. Instead, we should look at the things we do, and develop systems that help

minimize damage. If we are going to drink bottled water, we should make sure that

the bottles are not wasted. We should also try to keep the distance that we ship the

bottles to a minimum. Some environmentalists think we should abandon the

global economy, end rampant consumerism and get back to the land.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau World Pop Clock Projection there

were 6,659,420,098 people on the planet last weekend. I think it’s a little late, and

there are just too many of us, to be getting back to the land. So, let’s work to make


our cities sustainable. With any luck, we’ll do a better job of it and manage to

survive.



Affairs.

MORE: AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY | BOTTLE BILL | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | GREEN | STEVECOHENS BLOG


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Presidential Panderers: McCain on Gas Tax, Clinton and Obama on TradeBy Steve CohenApril 18, 2008 | 8:22 a.m.

I don’t know why it still

surprises me, but the political

pandering of presidential

politics continues to reach new

and even lower levels. With

bridges falling down, potholes

unfilled and mass transit

never mentioned, John

McCain wants to suspend the

18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day until Labor Day this

summer.

McCain’s idea of an economic stimulus is that we all get in our cars and take a ride.

Why worry about global warming and collapsing infrastructure? Let’s all hit the

road!

It may be painful to hear, but America’s gasoline tax is too low. It should pay for all

the costs of road construction and maintenance and it doesn’t even come close to

covering our needs. The gas tax is not actually a tax, but a fee for using the nation’s

roads. Most of the money from federal and state gas taxes is used for road

construction and upkeep. According to the National Surface

Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission that Congress

established in 2005:

Total highway expenditure needs are estimated at $4.9 trillion through

2020; $10.0 trillion through 2035; and $18.3 trillion through 2055,

stated in constant 2005 dollars.

Total transit needs on a cumulative basis in constant 2005 dollars are

estimated to be $1.1 trillion through 2020, $2.4 trillion through 2035

and $4.4 trillion through 2055. These estimates are the sum of the

constant dollar estimates for each year.

In 2007 the trust fund generated about $40 billion. About 45 percent of the funds

for highway and mass transit construction and equipment comes from the federal

government and 55 percent comes from our state and local governments. If we

generate $100 billion a year for 12 years we will generate a lot less than the $5





More Columns >> trillion that is needed.

Which brings me back to the tax-cutting plans recently announced by Senator

McCain: What in the world can he possibly be thinking of? Military spending for

the war in Iraq, coupled with the Bush tax cuts (that McCain originally opposed)

have generated the highest federal deficit in history. We are starving our basic

research scientists who can barely keep their labs functioning, disinvesting in

schools and transportation infrastructure and reducing the value of our currency

as we live beyond our means.

McCain is not alone in his pandering of course. Senators Obama and Clinton are

both treating us to a series of half-baked critiques of global trade from one end of

Pennsylvania to the other. We are really due for a reality check around here. We

need to invest in science and infrastructure if we are to avoid becoming a second

rate power. We need to acknowledge the reality of the global economy and ensure

that workers have a stake in its success. Trade barriers and budget deficits will

increase the price of goods and services, reduce the value of our currency and

reduce our ability to invest in the future. We need a President who is not afraid to

tell people the truth about the future. We can’t continue to live off our children’s

wealth.

We need to save more and invest more and maybe even defer a little bit of

gratification. Some of our investment must be for infrastructure and scientific

research that the federal government will need to fund. The main legitimate

argument against allowing government to play this role is the declining

competence in federal administration we’ve seen during the Bush Administration.

(Remember FEMA?) But the talk of tax cuts and of avoiding the competition of the

global marketplace is a dangerous delusion. It is true that we need to ensure that

trade is fair and that our competition doesn’t abuse their workers or their

environment. We can and must insist that our trading partners follow reasonable

rules. But closing off our borders to trade and immigration is the surest way to

ensure that America gets left behind in the global economy.

Instead of talking about ministers and sniper fire, it would be nice if the

Presidential candidates could tell us what they might do to improve government

management. Instead of cutting the gas tax and reducing the money we spend on

roads, we should be increasing the tax and encouraging more efficient

transportation. This Presidential campaign is not just long and tedious, it’s also

starting to get in the way of facing up to our real problems.

MORE: POLITICS | BARACK OBAMA | GASOLINE TAX | GREEN | HILLARY CLINTON | JOHN MCCAIN | STEVECOHENS BLOG

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On the Waterfront: Pier 40 and the Limits ofCommercial DevelopmentBy Steve CohenApril 21, 2008 | 7:29 a.m.

We may be seeing the limits to

public-private partnerships in

park development.

The plan to use funds from the

development of the West Side

waterfront to finance new

park construction and

maintenance seems to be

collapsing. While this doesn’t

mean an end to these partnerships, it is a signal that public amenities still require

public investment. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

The latest episode in the Pier 40 saga took place on March 28, when Hudson River

Park officials rejected a plan by Related Companies to build a $625 million

performing arts complex on Pier 40, located at West Houston Street. The Hudson

River Park Trust is the joint State-City agency responsible for building and

operating the Park. After a failed bid in 2003, in August, 2006, the Trust

issued a request for proposals (R.F.P.) to redevelop the pier. According

to the R.F.P., the Trust's objectives for redevelopment were to:

“incorporate park-appropriate revenue generating uses to create an

income stream for the overall park; maintain and improve Pier 40;

enhance waterfront access opportunities for

the surrounding community and region; and

reconnect the park to the surrounding

neighborhoods. The proposal requires that

approximately 1,800 public parking spaces

be retained primarily for long-term use by

area residents, and that the current public

access, programming and size of the existing

athletic fields be retained. The Trust stated that it would consider

alternative locations for the fields on the site provided their

accessibility and configuration was equal to or greater than the

existing sports fields. Under New York State’s Hudson River Park Act,

Pier 40 is one of three spots along Hudson River Park, where


+Enlargegeedebee via flickr.com

Pier 40 today.



More Columns >> commercial development is allowed to generate revenue for park

maintenance.

However, the Hudson River Park Act prohibits the use of the pier for, hotels,

residential units, office uses not related to permitted park uses,

manufacturing, “big box” retail, warehousing and gambling vessels. The

Act requires that at least 50 percent of Pier 40’s footprint be devoted to

non-commercial park space. In addition, the Act specifically states that

commercial parking at Pier 40 be used for long-term monthly parking.

The pier, which contains approximately 1.2 million square feet of space and spans

14 acres, is one of the largest in the city. It was used briefly by the Holland America

Line after opening in 1963, but has been used as a parking garage for most of its

existence. Today, 2,000 long-term parking spaces, excursion boats and the offices

of the Hudson River Park Trust call the pier home. A three-acre courtyard in the

center of the pier’s roof has been transformed into soccer and baseball fields used

mostly for little league games and funded in part by the Lower Manhattan

Development Corporation (LMDC) and grants from Nike and the U.S. Soccer

Foundation. According to the Trust, the parking spaces provide a reliable revenue

stream of more than $5 million, which is about 40 percent of the park’s operating

revenue.

The Related Companies proposal rejected in late March, was one of two bids to

redevelop the pier and generate cash for the park. This rejection came one day

after Related lost out to rival developer Tishman Speyer in the bidding process to

develop the Westside Hudson Rail Yards. According to a March 27 article in

The New York Sun:

"It is not that their plan doesn't work, it just doesn't work if they don't

get a longer lease," Chairperson of the Hudson River Trust, Diana

Taylor, said in an interview. "With a project where you have $120

million invested before it is revenue producing it takes a little longer to

earn your revenue back." "I would have loved to offer a longer lease

but that is not within our power. It is up to the state legislature and we

have been told in no uncertain terms that it is not happening," she

said.

The Act was amended to allow a 49-year term at Pier 57 because the

prospective developer was able to demonstrate that the project would provide

superior benefits to the community and Trust. However, Related's plan had been

opposed by community groups that use Pier 40 for its soccer and baseball fields,

and did not generate the political support needed to get a longer lease.

The Camp Group, a for-profit consortium that organizes day camps, is now the

only developer bidding on Pier 40. They have a little more than two months left to

submit plans for development of Pier 40 and are now working with the Pier 40

Partnership, a non-profit group opposed to commercial development that has

pledged to raise $30 million in private donations to redevelop the pier. The Pier 40

Partnership was created by Friends of Hudson River Park, a collection of

environmental and civic groups, neighborhood and community organizations,

businesses and individual citizens working to raise private-sector advocacy and

financial support for a world-class park on the Hudson from 59th Street to Battery

Park. Their goal is to create an “urban waterfront.” According to the group’s

website, “Pier 40 is one of Hudson River Park's greatest potential assets. With its

14-acre footprint, it has the potential to provide the largest contiguous park space


in the Park; and it is the only site that can support large-scale athletic fields for

youth and adult sports.”

Those heading the Pier 40 Partnership feel their conservancy, not a for-profit

group, must be in charge on the pier. In a Feb. 26 letter to Council Speaker

Christine Quinn, Connie Fishman, the Trust’s president, revealed the Trust’s

current thinking: A goal is to see if elements of the three plans can be combined “in

some fashion by a nonprofit developer to create a tax exempt-eligible proposal that

could be financed in the required 30-year term.” (See this article in The

Villager.) According to a Jan. 30 New York Times article: “Opponents such

as State Senator Thomas K. Duane and Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, who

represent the area, say “a mega-entertainment destination” that enriches a private

developer in a public park is the wrong course to follow. “Those venues already

exist in Manhattan,” Ms. Glick said. “What we don’t have is park space.”

The question raised by Pier 40 is the degree to which public amenities like parks

can be financed by the profits of private development. The great park building eras

in New York where characterized by public investment in public amenities. Senator

Duane and Assemblywoman Glick are arguing that the type of development

needed to generate the income needed for the park, can not be co-located with the

park. This may be true, and may force us to find a way to generate public funds for

the park. The Pier 40 Partnership is hoping that the funds needed can be raised by

a private, nonprofit group such as the successful Central Park Conservancy or the

Bryant Park Corporation. It appears that the Partnership is hoping that there is

enough wealth nearby to pay for this amenity without requiring government

expenditures. Of course, the absence of private economic activity does cost the

government revenue that would be generated from that activity, but forgone

income is less likely to be missed than allocations from the public treasury.

Why is this happening? Why are we unable to find the funds we used to find when

we built public parks? The simple answer is that the role of government has

changed. The funds that once might have been available for infrastructure like

parks, roads, mass transit and schools are now devoted to entitlements such as

health care, retirement and welfare. I am not arguing against social welfare

programs, simply indicating the source of fiscal stress. At one time, New York City

devoted public resources to housing and build a public housing system that still

houses 600,000 people. Today, the only new below market rate housing built is

generated by set-asides that developers agree to in order to receive permission to

build luxury buildings, or by non-profit institutions that build housing for their

own clients. Robert Moses was able to build new parks and public housing from

the 1930’s to the 1960’s with public funds and labor, today we are looking for park

funding from private developers or wealthy benefactors.

The problem with this funding model is that it only works if the parks are located

near the homes or businesses of the wealthy. We still need public funding for parks

in the South Bronx and in the parts of the city that are not wealthy. In a city that is

running out of land to develop, the temptation to sell or lease park land will only

get stronger. Pier 40 is a warning about the need to maintain public control over

these essential public resources. Open space and river breezes are priceless

treasures rather than tradable assets. We should keep that in mind.

MORE: POLITICS | REAL ESTATE | DEBORAH GLICK | GREEN | HUDSON RIVER PARK TRUST | PIER 40 | STEVECOHENS BLOG | TOM DUANE

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Bringing Green Principles Into the

Expert Researchers and Average Citizens Understand Climate Change, Why Can't Our President?By Steve CohenApril 22, 2008 | 12:13 p.m

In his ceaseless effort to

maintain his record as the

worst President on the

environment since the

creation of the EPA in 1970,

President George W. Bush has

somehow managed to outdo

himself with his latest Rose

Garden pronouncement on

climate change. He has decided that we should continue to increase emissions of

greenhouse gasses, but at a slower rate of growth than today and in 2025 we

should finally stop the growth of these dangerous emissions.

You can tell the President’s team must have lost some of its spin doctors, because

this latest effort in environmental public relations had no snappy title. Earlier in

his administration we saw the “Healthy Forest” initiative that was a thinly

disguised attack on the nation’s wilderness; and the “Clear Skies” program that

was a clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the nation’s air

pollution controls. Now, I propose we call this latest endeavor the “Floating Cities

Initiative” because that is what we are going to need to survive this pathetic excuse

for a policy on an issue as significant as global climate change.

Over the past seven years this administration has conducted a relentless attack on

our capacity to protect the environment. They have

dismantled existing programs, blocked the states

from taking more aggressive action, and done

nothing to deal with newly understood problems

like climate change and the maintenance of

biodiversity. Where once, America was a pioneer in

protecting our environment and natural resources,

today we lag behind Western Europe and are

losing our edge in policy and technology.

Thanks to a number of the top researchers in the

world working at U.S. universities, we’ve long





More Columns >> American Economy



known that climate change is not something we

can wait until 2025 to address. My colleagues at

Columbia, Wallace Broecker and Mark Cane, are

among those who have been warning us about the dangers of greenhouse gasses

for more than a quarter century. Someone needs to tell the President that we have

already emitted enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise the

temperature of the planet. The longer we wait to reduce emissions the more

difficult it will be to solve the climate crisis that has already begun.

The precise impact of global warming on agriculture, human disease and water

supply is difficult to predict, but ice melt and sea level rise is virtually assured. In

fact, according to Klaus Lackner, the Director of Columbia’s Lenfest Center for

Sustainable Energy: “Climate change concerns may soon force drastic reductions

in CO2 emissions. In response to this challenge, it may prove necessary to render

fossil fuels environmentally acceptable by capturing and sequestering CO2 until

other inexpensive, clean, and plentiful technologies are available.” Professor

Lackner is now working on ways we can actually capture the carbon dioxide that

we have already emitted by extracting it out of the air and storing it away from the

atmosphere. Given the damage already being done, we probably have no choice.

Many in the private sector are already ahead of our federal government in betting

on technological solutions, even though at the heart of the climate problem itself is

the impact of science and technology on our lives. Over the last two centuries,

technology has allowed us to feed more people, live longer, move around the planet

at greater speeds and distances and reproduce in greater numbers. We have built a

culture and a way of life that stresses individual freedom, mobility and material

consumption. Yet the infrastructure that allows us to live this way requires that we

consume a great deal of fossil fuel. Such consumption, in turn, generates

greenhouse gases that threaten the stability of the planet’s climate. Science is the

enabler of this technology and lifestyle, and we are now looking to science for help

in designing a technology to mitigate the negative impacts of our way of life.

Already we’re recognizing that some proposed fixes— like a vast increase in

farming activity to support ethanol production—actually cause more climate

problems than they solve.

As our understanding of our planet grows, we find ourselves dealing with more

complex and truly global environmental problems. Climate change therefore

challenges our political institutions—institutions that are largely designed to deal

with local issues and not particularly good at solving problems that cross national

borders. The fundamental, irreducible purpose of government is to keep us safe.

Yet this President has relentlessly pursued a go-it-alone approach by the U.S. that

has not only failed to address what it views as the primary threat of global

terrorism, but also our ability to work in collaboration to solve the clear and

present existential dangers that cross national boarders like climate change,

degraded and depleted fresh water and insufficient food supplies.

New Yorkers get it. A recent survey of 1,000 adults in the five boroughs found

that more than three-quarters of respondents are convinced that global warming is

happening now, that human activity is a cause, and that more should be done by

key leaders to help New York City deal with climate change. The survey is the

first-ever study of New Yorkers’ opinions about global warming and was designed

and funded by Columbia and Yale Universities, and led by the Center for

Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia.


We are long past the need for symbolic gestures or empty Rose Garden rhetoric. If

we need to set a goal for the decades ahead, how about a serious goal more like the

one Mayor Bloomberg has set for New York itself: reducing emissions by 30

percent below 2005 levels by 2030?

Because only by taking that kind of strong action to set meaningful goals, expand

public investment in new research and create effective incentives for our private

sector will America become a leader instead of remaining a laggard in dealing with

climate change.

MORE: GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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A Year in the Life of 'PlaNYC 2030': Performance, Promise and LimitsBy Steve CohenApril 25, 2008 | 7:50 a.m.

A little more than a year ago,

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

launched his pathbreaking

"PlaNYC 2030" urban

sustainability plan. According

to the city’s own progress

report on the plan’s first

year:

The implementation of PlaNYC's 127 initiatives requires the effort of

more than 20 City agencies; the help of our Sustainability Advisory

Board; partners and supporters from all across New York City; and

close cooperation with the City Council and other elected officials. In

the first year since the release of the plan, we completed rezonings,

planted 54,484 trees, moved our taxis and black cars toward fuel

efficiency, encouraged bicycling with 60 new lane miles, and engaged

New York City in the most significant transportation discussion in a

generation.

In a recently released report, The New York League of Conservation Voters

Education Fund (NYLCVEF) assessed progress made on PlaNYC over the past

year. The report evaluated the administration’s response to eight main areas: air

and energy, water, sustainable agriculture, transportation, green jobs, green

procurement, solid waste and land use.

The New York League was positive about the plan’s progress in improving air

quality, curbing carbon emissions and reducing energy consumption. It supported

the mayor’s approach to reducing 30 percent of the city’s emissions by 2030

through transportation, energy and land use strategies. According to the report,

“This groundbreaking law, the first of its kind at the municipal level, will go a long

way toward making New York a truly sustainable city.”

The League of Conservation Voters also applauded PlaNYC’s progress on green





More Columns >> procurement. “In FY2007, the city made 50,586 procurements totaling $15.7

billion. Using this economic power is one important way that the city can help

create a sustainable future.”

The report approved of the plan’s program to plant one million trees throughout

the city over the next decade.

However, it was critical of the mayor’s lack of progress on the revitalization of the

city’s waterfront, “one of the city’s last great underdeveloped resources,” as well as

its attempts to reform New York’s brownfield program and improve regional parks.

The biggest disappointment came from the mayor’s handling of solid waste: “Of all

the areas outlined in our 2007 Sustainability Agenda, the Bloomberg

administration’s performance is weakest in the field of solid waste.”

The League criticized the mayor for not supporting broad enough recycling

measures and for overreliance on congestion pricing revenue to improve mass

transit. With congestion pricing now stuck in permanent Albany gridlock, the

League suggested a variable-price parking program “to increase the rate for street

parking in the Manhattan Central Business District during working hours.”

Dan Hendrick, the New York League of Conservation Voters Communications

Director thought the congestion pricing battle had a positive impact. Hendrick

observed that “…the debate over congestion pricing has really raised the bar…It

helped people see the link between mass transit and congestion. Now they are

looking to their legislators for solutions and action.”

Council Member James Gennaro of Queens, chairman of the Environmental

Protection Committee, expressed concern over the long-term institutionalization of

the PlaNYC initiatives. He would like to see the goals and programs in the plan

codified into law.

“There's about 20 months left, and we have to move these bills forward," Mr.

Gennaro told The New York Sun in a recent interview. "My experience has been

that the mayor's vision is very bold, and his staff has been cautious regarding

getting the concepts in PlaNYC crystallized into legislation.”

I think PlaNYC is an important first step. The Mayor provided strong and visible

leadership, and put sustainability on the city’s political agenda.

Still, Councilman Gennaro is correct: We should use the remainder of the Mayor’s

term to hardwire these initiatives and put some of them into law. The public

should ask the candidates for Mayor next year to tell us where they stand on

sustainability issues. Local initiatives, like New York City’s sustainability plan are

necessary but not sufficient solutions to the problems caused by short-sighted

economic development. We need to get our act together and build sustainability in

our homes, communities and cities.

In the end though, there are limits to what can be done at the local level. For the

past seven years environmental groups have been avoiding Washington D.C.

because nothing like sustainable development is anywhere on the Bush-Cheney

priority list.

National standards and policies are needed for everything from electronic waste to

Carbon Dioxide emissions. These are national and international problems that

cannot be solved at the local level.


We need massive investment in research and development to transform our

economy from a fossil-fuel based throw away economy to one that relies on

renewable energy and reusable resources.

We need leadership in Washington that encourages sustainability and we need

better technology to ensure that the economic growth is not accomplished at the

expense of our childrens’ well being.

Mayor Bloomberg deserves praise for brining environmental sustainability into the

poltical mainstream.



Affairs.

MORE: POLITICS | REAL ESTATE | CONGESTION PRICING | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION COMMITEE | GREEN |JAMES GENNARO | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL | NEW YORK LEAGUE OFCONSERVATION VOTERS | PLANNYC | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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The Floating Cities Initiative Comes HomeBy Steve CohenApril 28, 2008 | 7:11 a.m.

When we walk down

Broadway in Manhattan, we

sometimes forget that New

York is virtually surrounded

by water. In fact, the five

boroughs have 578 miles of

shoreline. If global warming

ends up melting enough sea

ice at the poles to cause the

sea level to rise, New York City

is in a world of trouble.

The only borough that’s on the mainland of the North American continent is the

Bronx; all the rest are islands or parts of islands. As the region’s economy has been

transformed from industrial to post-industrial, and as sewage treatment has ended

the role of rivers as the repository for untreated sewage, residential, park and

commercial development has gravitated to the shore line. In the old days, we

avoided waterfronts. Why do you think that Riverside Drive is a quarter of a mile

from the Hudson River? It’s not really by the “side” of the river because as recently

as a few decades ago, we dumped raw sewage directly into the Hudson. No one in

their right mind would want to get very close to the Hudson River on a hot

summer day. One benefit of federal water pollution laws is that sewage is now

treated before it is released into our waterways,

and rivers like the Hudson are clean enough today

to live next to. The bike path along the river is now

one of the great cycle paths of the city.

It is difficult to project how much the sea level will

rise, but it’s definitely heading upward. Writing

over a decade ago, in a prescient 1996 article in the

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Professor Rae Zimmerman of New

York University’s Wagner School of Public Service estimated that the sea might

rise by a half a foot by 2030. However, she recognized that the world would

probably last longer than that and cited projections of sea-level rise that ranged

from two and a half to three feet by the end of the 21st century.

Of course, we don’t need to wait for the end of the century to know what flooding



Thousands of New Yorkers were stranded last summer whenflooding incapacitated vast stretches of the city subway system.



More Columns >> can do. We already know the impact of a storm surge on the subway and on roads

like the Bronx River, Hutchinson and Saw Mill River parkways. They become

submerged and are often impassable in heavy rain. Sea-level rise will make these

storm surges worse and will increase wear and tear on infrastructure.

Even if storms do not grow in intensity, as many experts on global warming believe

will happen, the impact of storms will increase.

Transportation, schooling and production will be disrupted. Some of this

disruption will simply be accepted. When the subways and highways are flooded,

we will close them and either figure out a way around them or simply close the

region down for business until the water goes away. When a blizzard comes, we all

stay home and watch the snow fall, so I suppose we can always do the same thing

when it rains.

Unless the damage is permanent and wrecks our homes, roads and subways we

may do nothing to adapt to the impact of climate change on our infrastructure. If

New Orleans could ignore its levees, why can't New York simply turn its back to the

sea and hope for the best?

This is not to say that New York is as vulnerable as New Orleans. But we are

vulnerable. Some of our government agencies recognize this problem.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has responded to the impact of

flooding from nor’easters and constructed a dike and levee system that surrounds

La Guardia airport. They have also undertaken floodgate construction beneath the

Hudson River’s PATH commuter train tunnel. Of the 648 miles of subway track in

New York City, 411 miles are underground. As Professor Zimmerman wrote back in

1996, “The system operates 343 pumping stations which remove an average of 15

million gallons of water a day accumulating from rainwater, high water tables and

water main breaks.”

In addition to the subways, Zimmerman discuses a wide range of vulnerable

infrastructure including solid waste transfer stations and sewage treatment plants

that are located by the water.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (D.E.P.) and PlaNYC

2030 have been working on adaptation to climate change for a few years. In 2004,

DEP began a Climate Change Task Force to work on adaptation to climate change.

This was in part a response to an important study of the impact of climate change

in this region that was completed back in 2001 and co-led by my Earth Institute

and NASA colleague, Cynthia Rosenzweig, along with Rutgers Professor William D.

Solecki. In its first progress report, PlaNYC announced the formation of a citywide

intergovernmental Climate Change Adaptation Task Force to work on protecting

our infrastructure from the risks posed by climate change.

Are we capable of adapting to climate change and investing in the infrastructure

we need to prevent catastrophe? Well, to quote at least 20 well-known politicians,

yes, and no.

If a huge and damaging flood comes suddenly and destroys billions of dollars of

infrastructure, we are probably (excuse the pun) sunk. On the other hand if we get

a few small, but painful, visible and easily understood examples of what may come,

we might very well develop the political will to invest scarce capital in major

infrastructure that could resist damage.


At its peak in World War II, nearly half the Gross National Product was spent by

the government on national defense. Most healthy people contributed to the war

effort. Many people who didn’t serve in the military worked in defense factories.

While the invasion never got any closer than Hawaii, everyone could see the threat.

We also know how to invest in the future. Currently, New York City is nearing the

end of a multidecade, multibillion-dollar project to build a third water tunnel to

carry water from upstate. It is not a project designed to deal with a crisis of the

moment, but to prevent a crisis in the future.

Hopefully, when we figure out what we need to build to prevent damage from sea

level rise, we will make the necessary investment. Climate change is real and will

require investment and sacrifice if we are to successfully adapt.

The right political leadership will make the threats posed by climate change just as

clear now, and help form the political will to do something about it despite the

cost. Hopefully, we haven’t forgotten how to act as a community.

I am grateful for the research assistance of Drew Foxman, a graduate student in

Comparative and International Education at Columbia’s Teachers College.

MORE: FLOOD | GLOBAL WARMING | GREEN | METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY | PLANNYC | SEALEVEL | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Hillary Clinton and John McCain's Craven Gas-Tax ManeuverBy Steve CohenMay 2, 2008 | 4:53 p.m

A couple of weeks ago I wrote

about the pandering

Presidential politics of

Clinton, McCain and Obama.

McCain pandered on the gas

tax and Hillary and Barack

pandered on trade.

A few days ago, in a

disheartening display of more of the same, Clinton joined McCain in supporting

the suspension of the federal gasoline tax this summer. In contrast, Obama

continued to oppose the tax suspension. With key primaries coming up in Indiana

and North Carolina and in a clumsy attempt to court the hard-pressed middle

class, Clinton has abandoned principle for a moment of possible political gain.

Obama, who seems to be remembering that he is always at his best when he levels

with the voters, deserves credit for doing the right thing on this issue.

This latest bit of political gamesmanship is part of Clinton’s newest attack line:

Barak Obama is out of touch with the concerns of average Americans. After a year

of intense campaigning and constant travel I’m quite confident that both Senator

Clinton and Senator Obama are fully aware of the concerns of the American public.

It’s a contrived argument—and Hillary knows it is. Anyone who gets in a car or

doesn’t have a million bucks in the bank knows that the middle class is feeling the

squeeze. The answer to that squeeze is policies that

generate real wealth and then work to ensure that

the middle class shares in the wealth they help

generate.

Revitalizing the economy won’t be accomplished

by sending rebate checks in the mail or defunding

our infrastructure. We need to invest in science

and technology, build a fossil fuel-free green

economy and help working Americans and their

kids get the education they need to participate in

the global economy.







The war in Iraq is another drain on our economy,

as amply demonstrated by my Columbia colleague,

Joseph Stiglitz in his new book, The Three Trillion

Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (co authored with Linda Bilmes).

Clinton and Obama both know this. While I realize it’s too much to ask that the

Presidential campaign be used to educate the country about the real challenges we

face, the candidates could at least avoid misleading the American public.

The gasoline tax is needed to build and maintain our roads and bridges. Lower fuel

taxes will encourage more driving and add to air pollution and global warming. A

lower gasoline tax is bad public policy and it really saddens me to see someone I

admire as much as Hillary Clinton sink to this level to try to squeeze out a few

more votes in this campaign.

I suspect that most people can see through these blatant political maneuvers and

they don’t really work. People think that gasoline is too expensive, but they also

know we need to figure out a way to reduce our addiction to it. We have had seven

years of politics that appealed to self interest and fear. The result of that has been

an endless war and an economy on the skids.

Thee surest sign that Senator Clinton is on the wrong side of this issue was

President Bush’s announcement in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that he was open

to the idea of suspending the gasoline tax. Of course, the President thinks the real

answer to high energy prices is additional oil exploration and refining capacity.

Perhaps his Texas oil friends are envious of the profits being made by BP PLC and

Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's two biggest oil producers, who recently

announced combined first quarter profits of $17 billion. We have paid a heavy

price by allowing our energy policies to be dominated by the oil industry.

We need fresh thinking and honesty from our politicians on energy policy. We see

signs of honesty from Obama, less and less of it from Clinton, little of it from

McCain and of course none of it from President Bush.

MORE: 2008 DEMOCRATS | 2008 REPUBLICANS | BARACK OBAMA | GASOLINE TAX | GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN| HILLARY CLINTON | JOHN MCCAIN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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What a WasteBy Steve CohenMay 9, 2008 | 9:20 a.m.

Earlier this week, New York

Times reporter Felicity

Barringer filed an excellent

story on San Francisco’s

successful waste

management strategy.

The story discussed San

Francisco Mayor Gavin

Newsom’s zeal for keeping garbage out of landfills. Currently, his city keeps 70

percent of its disposable garbage out of landfills.

You might think that would be enough, but it’s not. He is about to propose

legislation to mandate recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food

scraps. If you don’t recycle, the city won’t pick up the rest of your garbage.

How much of New York City’s waste is kept out of landfills? About 30 percent. Of

course, that puts us ahead of Boston at 16 percent and Houston at less than 3

percent.

For some reason people on the West Coast are more serious about waste

management. Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s forward looking PlaNYC 2030, New

York’s waste policy is to get the garbage out of here to some place else as quickly

and cheaply as possible.

Waste management was excluded from PlaNYC

2030 because the city already had a

comprehensive waste management plan. That plan

was proposed in 2006 and enacted in 2007. The

city’s waste plan is to build marine waste transfer

stations and barge the garbage to any place that

will take it. Water-borne and train transport of our

garbage will reduce pollution from trucks and is

better than our current system. Currently we dump

the garbage onto the floor of huge warehouses and

then scoop it up and truck it out of state.

But whether its trains or barges or trucks, our


+Enlargevia fuzzyco.com



More Columns >> Understanding Public Opinion About the Environment policy is to pray that our garbage goes to solid

waste heaven. More likely its toxic components will

leak out of landfills into groundwater in rural Pennsylvannia.

PlaNYC 2030 focuses on land, water, transportation, energy, air and climate

change. It’s a terrific and important initiative, but it leaves out waste. Why are we

so ashamed of our garbage? Why no consultant-driven, PowerPoint-laden, Deputy

Mayor Dan Doctoroff-produced multimedia show in the park for waste

management? Why isn’t waste reduction, recycling and enhanced waste

management part of the city’s high-visibility sustainability plan? Is garbage just too

negative a subject to get excited about?

Mayor Bloomberg has taken on traffic, smoking, crime and countless other

challenges facing the city. The city’s waste management plan is an improvement

over current practices and so the people who developed it deserve credit for a job

well done. Still, it lacks the boldness and vision of many of the mayor’s other

initiatives? Why?

One wants to find a psychological explanation in our unwillingness to deal with

this issue. Tokyo burns most of its garbage in clean-burning incinerators that

generate electricity. Barcelona has a facility that does that and also sorts garbage

for recycling and creates compost. San Francisco is heading toward a 75 percent

rate of landfill waste diversion. I guess New York is the city that’s too busy to

manage its waste.

In the long run, we will need to do something different. Just like we own our water

system and control that vital resource, we will also need to control the place we put

our garbage. The price of disposal is only going to increase over the next few

decades.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that as the planet’s population grows, and

finite natural resources become more scarce, the economics of recycling will

continue to improve. When we develop low-cost renewable energy, one of the main

cost factors in recycling will be reduced.

Today’s garbage will be tomorrow’s raw materials for manufacturing. New York

City’s population density will make the city an excellent place for “mining” waste.

Maybe it’s too late for this administration to develop a vision for our garbage. The

clock in the City Hall bullpen is fast counting down to zero. Just like the failed

congestion pricing program was a missed opportunity of historic proportions, so

too has been the failure to focus attention on the city’s waste. What a waste.

MORE: GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | PLANNYC | SOLID WASTE | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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President Obama has Already

John McCain and the Politics of Climate ChangeBy Steve CohenMay 15, 2008 | 8:26 a.m.

In a recent speech, Senator

John McCain reiterated his

support for mandatory caps

on greenhouse gasses and for

a cap and trade policy for

carbon dioxide. He also

criticized President Bush’s

lack of leadership on global

warming. It is good news to

see some consensus among all

the Presidential candidates on

the issue of global warming

and a definite step forward.

Two other elements of

McCain’s climate and energy policy are a little less positive. First is his support for

the suspension of the gasoline tax for the summer. I’m with Mike Bloomberg on

this—the tax suspension is one of the most idiotic proposals of this endless

presidential campaign. If you want to reduce production of greenhouse gasses you

should not be lowering the price of gasoline. If you want to keep our aging highway

bridges from falling down you might not want to defund the highway trust fund.

Second is McCain’s support of nuclear power. He is not alone in pushing nuclear

power. While no one argues, as they did in the

1950’s, that nuclear generated electricity would be

too cheap to meter, many scientists are attracted to

nuclear energy’s carbon free properties. This

includes a number of my colleague’s here at

Columbia University.

Most of the electricity in France is generated by

nuclear reactors. China is rapidly building both

coal and nuclear power plants. Both of these

nations have central governments with a great deal

more authority over local governments than ours.

Despite the efforts of Vice President Cheney to





More Columns >> Redefined the Political Center




consolidate power in the White House, the United

States remains a federal system with states

retaining a great deal of authority. Local

governments in the United States and even

communities are seen as important players in our

political process. While all local government authority must be granted by states,

in this country, local communities have strong veto rights over land development.

That is why the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada may never

open. That is why there are no Wal-Marts in New York City. That is why no nuclear

power plants have been built in the United States in a generation.

While the nuclear industry is desperately promoting a revival, no one wants a

nuclear power plant next door. Nuclear power plants require a great deal of water

for cooling and so they tend to be located in the same place we are building condos

and new beach clubs. My own view is that investing a great deal of resources in a

technology that is so controversial is a waste of time and money. Even if you set

aside the issues of waste, vulnerability to terrorism and risks from incompetent

operation, the politics of power plant siting should be enough to apply the brakes

to nuclear development.

In this region, LILCO’s customers are still paying the costs of building and never

operating the Shoreham nuclear power plant. There are constant calls to shut

down the Indian Point nuclear power plant north of the City. Many of America’s

nuclear power plants are approaching the age where they must be renovated or

decommissioned and taken out of service.

Nuclear advocates respond by saying that when brown-outs are common and we

don’t have enough electricity to run our homes, we will turn to nuclear power out

of desperation. I don’t think so. Moreover, why not develop other, less

complicated, more decentralized and maybe even less capital-intensive power

sources? It is not that I lack confidence in nuclear technology, it’s that I think it is

not politically feasible at the scale we need to construct. Nuclear power’s appeal is

that it is available and off the shelf. Its problem is that in our decentralized political

system no one wants it next door and every community has the power to veto it.

We need to develop a carbon- free energy source. With Nissan Motors announcing

that it is ready to mass market the first electric car, the need for renewable sources

of electricity has become more urgent. The issue of climate change creates a crisis

that is global in scale. The future of our economy depends on the development of

sustainable, renewable and probably solar-based energy. It will be interesting to

see if our energy future develops as a theme during this campaign. I wonder if an

issue as central as this can compete for media attention with the stuff we end up

hearing about? I mean isn’t more important to know who Hamas favors in this

election, and how old can someone be and still serve as President? How does the

future of the planet and our economic well being compete with those key issues? I

guess we’re about to find out.

MORE: GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Preparing the Next Generation of Environmental LeadersBy Steve CohenMay 23, 2008 | 9:36 a.m.

This week is graduation week

here at Columbia and the

campus has been hosting huge

crowds of happy graduates

and proud parents. I am

reminded that in

post-industrial New York City,

education is a big business.

There are over 600,000 students in 61 institutions of higher education in New

York City. This is the biggest college town in the United States, and when you add

the 1,100,000 students in the city’s 1,450 public primary and secondary schools

and add to that the students in the 900 private secular and religious schools in the

city, you get a sense for the amount of teaching and learning that goes on around

here. With about 2 million students and hundreds of thousands of staff and

teachers, at least 30 percent of the people living in New York City participate in

education programs every day during the school year.

Within this huge and important enterprise a growing number of people are

focusing on understanding the sustainability of our planet. A larger and larger

number of students are studying about the environment and sustainable

development. This is happening every day in elementary schools, preschools and

high schools. Here at Columbia we have over two dozen undergraduate and

graduate programs that focus on issues of

environmental science, policy and

sustainability. There are thousands of students

studying these issues at New York University, Pace

University, Cooper Union, The City University of

New York, Fordham University, and most of the

city’s other colleges and universities.

One of the jobs I do at Columbia is directing the Masters of Public Administration

in Environmental Science and Policy at the School of International and Public

Affairs. On May 21, over 55 students from that program graduated from Columbia

and joined about 250 colleagues who have graduated from this program since it

began in 2002. Before our students graduate they all work in groups of between 10





More Columns >> and 12 to do a study of an environmental issue for a client in the government or in

the nonprofit community. This public service is the type of class done at many

universities in New York, including N.Y.U.’s Wagner School of Public Service. This

spring, students and faculty in our Environmental M.P.A. Program completed five

great projects including:

Act Locally: Implementing Sustainability in Local

Governments

One team worked with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region

II office here in New York and analyzed local government

sustainability plans throughout the United States. They developed a

practical sustainablity handbook for local governments which is now

posted on the E.P.A.’s Web site.

Ocean Observing and Emergency Management

A second team worked on integrating the Ocean Observing System

into Coastal Zone Management in the Mid-Atlantic. The Integrated

Ocean Observing System aims to make climate predictions, promote

maritime safety, minimize public health risks, and support ecological

and resource management decision-making. Columbia’s team worked

with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Coastal Ocean Observing Regional

Association to incorporate this system into the New York bight.

Designing a Green Building Retrofit Training Program

Another team of Columbia students worked with the well known local

environmental group, Sustainable South Bronx to help develop a

model for a training people for work retrofitting buildings to be more

environmental friendly. The team designed a retrofit training program

to promote energy conservation, provide employment, educate

workers, and encourage outside investment.

U.N. Food Programme and Climate Change in West Africa

A fourth team of Columbia students worked with the U.N. World Food

Programme to create strategies for incorporating climate change

adaptation into their projects. The students created a framework for

climate change assessment, which looks at the impacts of drought and

desertification, flooding, and deforestation.

Reducing Carbon Emissions from Power Generation: The

Potential Role of Biofuels in New Jersey

This team of Columbia students worked with the New Jersey

Department of Environmental Protection to evaluate biomass life cycle

emissions calculation methods for use by electricity-generating

facilities. The Columbia team analyzed a variety of feedstocks that

could be used for generating electricity in New Jersey. They have been

constructed models to assess current policies, for the New Jersey

Department of Environmental Politics.

The details on all of these projects and videos of the final presentation can be

found on our program’s Web site.


My faculty colleagues in our workshop, Kathy Callahan, Tanya Heikkila, Gail

Suchman, and Sara Tjssoem worked closely without students throughout the

semester, and like environmental faculty through out New York, are helping to

train the next generation of environmental educators. Professors and teachers,

please send me information on projects you and your students worked on this year.

I’d love to let people know what is going on in our classrooms.

MORE: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | GREEN | NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Memorial Day ReflectionsBy Steve CohenMay 26, 2008 | 3:28 p.m

I have a summer place on the

West End of Long Beach, New

York, that my wife and I

bought in 1987. Long Beach is

an urban beach—about an

hour from the city and at the

end of a branch of the Long

Island Railroad. My small

house is really a bungalow that

is on a 60 by 40-foot piece of land a half block from the bay and a block and a half

from the ocean. The house was built around 100 years ago and I’ve been

wondering if will be around 100 years from now. The Army Corps of Engineers

wants to build a huge dune on the beach to protect the island from the next storm

surge, but the folks here rejected the idea and are willing to take their chances. I’m

not sure how I feel about it. Barrier islands like this are truly wonderful places to

enjoy, but it’s a little crazy to think we can avoid destructive storms forever.

New York City is blessed by a location right by the ocean and close to mountains.

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we had Riis Park, Brighton Beach, Manhattan

Beach, and Coney Island. Later we discovered the beaches from the Rockaways to

Atlantic Beach-Long Beach, from Jones Beach to Fire Island, from the Hamptons

all the way to Montauk. To say nothing of the Jersey Shore from Bradley Beach to

Ship Bottom on the beautiful Long Beach Island. If

you love the ocean, New York City is near some of

the world’s most beautiful beaches. Summer is a

time for slowing down the pace or at least changing

the scenery. For me, summer means the ocean, the

boardwalk and the beach.

This past weekend summer started with reflection and the somber determination

of Memorial Day. In Long Beach there is a parade that features 5,000 people

marching and according to the Long Beach City Web site, about half the town

is either in the parade or watching it. My neighbors and I go to the corner and

watch the parade and wave American flags and cheer the veterans, politicos and

the school marching bands. With a war on and in a town with as many veterans as

Long Beach, there was a touch of sadness mingled with our memories. As idiotic


+EnlargeFlickr; courtesy of mason13a



More Columns >> and tragic as this war is, I am glad that we continue to honor our soldiers. When I

was in High School I was active in the anti-Vietnam war movement and back then

opposition to the war extended to the people who served in our military. Today

that is not the case. We have been able to separate our feelings about the people

who serve our nation from our feelings about this war. We owe a great deal to the

people who protect us overseas and to the police, fire fighters and emergency

workers who protect us here at home.

There is little question that we were deceived into fighting in Iraq. Saddam may

have been evil, but he no longer had weapons of mass destruction- and we were

manipulated into this war by ideologues in Washington. Terrorism is a real threat

to people all over the world, but the war in Iraq has little to do with that threat. Still

on Memorial Day we take the time to honor those who gave their lives so we can

enjoy this still amazing country.

The ethos of public service must be nurtured if our nation is to survive and thrive.

That includes the military, but also includes work in the Peace Corps, Americorp,

police and fire departments and the countless community based organizations that

work on everything from feeding the hungry to planting flowers in our parks. As

Barak Obama said when filling in for Ted Kennedy at Wesleyan University

commencement last weekend: “It’s because you have an obligation to yourself,

because our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation. Because it’s

only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize

your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great

chapter in America’s story…I hope you’ll remember, during those times of doubt

and frustration, that there is nothing naïve about your impulse to change the

world. Because all it takes is one act of service — one blow against injustice — to

send forth that tiny ripple of hope that Robert Kennedy spoke of.” There is little

question that this era of self-indulgence will need to end if America is to thrive as a

sustainable nation in a global economy.

As summer starts I think about shared sacrifice, public service and the passage of

time. Despite our best efforts to destroy it, the south shore of Long Island retains

its beauty and timeless quality. We get older, our babies become toddlers and in

the blink of an eye they are teenagers bound for college. From a bike on the Long

Beach Boardwalk you can’t help but feel optimistic. The sky, the sand and the

ocean are simply beautiful. In a world where too many suffer, we have an

obligation to share this beauty with others and to make this planet better for

everyone.

MORE: GREEN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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The Environmental Benefits of Organic and Local FoodBy Steve CohenMay 29, 2008 | 3:59 p.m

Growing population, drought,

the use of biofuels and

increased consumption have

contributed to a growing

world food crisis. The most

vulnerable among us here in

New York and poor people

around the world are most

affected by rising food prices

and shortages. At the same time, we also see a growing awareness of where our

food comes from and the environmental impact of food production. One result of

that has been increased use of organic foods and increased use of locally grown

foods. The movement toward organic foods and locally grown and marketed

organic and non-organic foods is easy to see in our supermarkets and in the

sidewalk greenmarkets located in many of the city’s neighborhoods.

Organic produce sales doubled from roughly $3 billion in 2002 to $6 billion in

2006, according to the Organic Trade Association. That figure is expected to jump

to $8.1 billion by 2010. Just over 6% of all produce sales now fall into the organic

category, up from 2.5% a decade ago. Organic food offers benefits to the

environment, local communities and public health. It does not rely on synthetic or

petroleum-based pesticides or fertilizers, resulting in less water and soil

contamination due to run-off. Buying organic at

local farmers market, reduces your carbon

footprint. (Check out this article from EcoStreet

on ways to reduce your food miles.) In addition:

Locally grown food reduces the

present average of 1,300 miles

food travels from “field to

plate.”

According to the Council on the Environment of New





More Columns >>York City (CENYC), “Transporting food long

distances uses tremendous energy: it takes 435

fossil-fuel calories to fly a 5 calorie strawberry from

California to New York.”

According to the Council on the Environment of New

York City (CENYC), “Over the past 50 years, close to

a million acres of local farmland have been buried

under cement and asphalt. The farms that attend

Greenmarket preserve over 30,000 acres of regional

open space.”

The Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC ) runs the city’s

Greenmarkets and has outlined some additional reasons why they are good for

New York: www.cenyc.org/greenmarket/whygreenmarket

Food Security. “Greenmarket participates in the NYS

Farmers Market Nutrition Program, providing food

to families at nutritional risk. In 2005, almost

250,000 such households redeemed vouchers worth

$3 million for locally grown fresh fruits and

vegetables at NYC farmers markets.” In 2005,

Greenmarket donated over 300,000 pounds of food

to City Harvest.

Improve Neighborhood Economies. “In peak season,

the Union Square Greenmarket draws 60,000

shoppers a day; in a recent survey, 82% cited

Greenmarket as the primary reason for their visit,

and 60% spent up to $50 in area businesses.”

Biodiversity. “Greenmarket farmers grow thousands

of varieties of fruits and vegetables, including over

100 varieties each of apples and tomatoes. In

contrast, industrial agribusiness cultivates high-yield

hybrids bred for fast maturation and thick skins to

withstand mechanical harvest and transport. The UN

Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that

more than 75% of agricultural genetic diversity was

lost in the 20th century. Small, biodiverse farms


preserve our food heritage.”

Goods labeled “Certified Organic” are strictly regulated. Except for smaller growers

who sell less than $5,000 in goods per year, organic farmers are inspected at least

once a year to ensure compliance with National Organic Program standards on

production and processing. The word organic is central to the certification and

marketing process. This process is criticized by some. Certified Naturally Grown,

offers a “non-profit alternative eco-labelling program for small farms that grow

using USDA Organic methods but are not a part of the USDA Certified Organic

program.” (www.naturallygrown.org)

According to American Farmland Trust, “New York lost 127,000 acres of

farmlands between 1997 and 2002 – an average of 70 acres of farmland a day.”

There were 36,000 farms in operation in 2004. A May 2005 survey by the New

York State Department of Agriculture and Markets reported that New York

represents a $30 billion per year market for food. Market demand for locally

grown and processed products amounts to more than $866 million per year.

New York law makes it the state policy to encourage the creation and use of

farmers’ markets in promoting agriculture. The law states: “The legislature hereby

finds and declares that farmers' markets provide a vital and highly effective

marketing mechanism for thousands of New York farmers, improve the access of

consumers and wholesalers to New York farm products, and contribute to the

economic revitalization of the areas in which the markets are located.”

(McKinney’s Consolidated Laws of New York, Agriculture and Markets Law § 259,

2001)

The volume of food needed to feed a city of this size makes large scale food

manufacturing a necessity. Still, it ought to be possible to make sure that at least

10% of our food is grown locally and 10% is grown organically. In the long run, we

need to make sure that the food industry takes steps to reduce it’s environmental

impact. On the continuum from locally grown organic food to high powered

industrial agriculture there is a middle ground. We need to find that place and

improve the way we grow and ship our food. Air, water, waste and food-- remind

us that we humans are biological creatures. Both billionaires and homeless folks

need this planet to survive. It’s really the great equalizer. As John Kennedy once

said “…our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all

breathe the same air…” We also need this planet to provide us with food. Maybe we

ought to figure out some way to take care of it.

This piece was co-authored by Sara Schonhardt, Graduate Student,

Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs


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Understanding Climate Change and SustainabilityBy Steve CohenJune 2, 2008 | 3:27 p.m

Perhaps the most eminent

climate scientist at Columbia

University is Wallace S.

Broecker, who everyone

around here calls Wally. He

and science writer Robert

Kunzig have just published a

wonderful and easy to read

book entitled: “Fixing Climate:

What Past Climate Changes

Reveal About the Current Threat—And How to Counter It”. Both Wally and our

engineering colleague Klaus Lackner concede that we have already emitted too

much carbon dioxide (CO2) to prevent global warming and we will need to learn

how to capture the excess carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere and keep new

CO2 from being released when we burn fossil fuels. We need to learn how to

capture greenhouse gasses and then learn how to store them underground.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the “myth” of climate change from some folks

who consider the science of climate to be some kind of environmental conspiracy.

The fact of climate change is just that, a scientific fact. I think the problem starts

when people who do not understand economics or politics propose solutions to the

climate problem that are unrealistic or infeasible. Wally and Klaus have proposed

a solution which is both realistic and

feasible—although difficult to achieve. These are

two very practical guys who understand we are not

going to shut down the world’s economy to save

the planet. We need to figure out a path to

sustainability that relies on technology and

enlightened self interest to preserve the planet.

The fundamental fact about the planet earth these days is that we are making more

people and we are not making more planet. We have discovered that technology

and creativity allow us to be more efficient in our use of the planet’s resources.

There is enough water, food, space and energy for everyone if we learn how to do a

better job of recycling our finite resources and making more use of renewable



Greenpeace activists hold a banner and pose with paintedtorsos with climate change messages during a protest.



More Columns >> resources.

If you don’t think there are more people on the planet then ever, check out the U.S.

Census’ world population clock. At 7:37 A.M. on June 1, the clock estimated a

world population of: 6,671,377,329. By 7:47 A.M there were 6,671,378,797 people.

In ten minutes we added nearly fifteen hundred people to the planet. Last year, on

July 1, we had 6,600,411,051 people on Earth On July 1, 2008 we will have about

6,677,602,292. In one year we have added over seventy five million people. When I

was born in 1953, the planet had 2,681,052,111 people, by the time I graduated

from James Madison High School in Brooklyn in 1970 there were 3,707,183,055 of

us. The good news is that the rate of increase is slowing. The bad news is that all

those people need food, water, land, and air and while there is enough to go

around, it won’t be sustainable unless we become much more effective stewards of

this wonderful and bountiful planet.

For the people who don’t think that humans have damaged the planet, think back

to when you were a kid. Remember those places you used to hike and camp 10, 15

or 25 years ago? How many of them are now strip malls or subdivisions? Let’s be

serious- there is no question that humans have changed and damaged this planet.

However, we have also made life better for billions of people. Civilization has made

it possible for people to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Is all this a

good thing? I think so, but whatever my opinion is of all of this, I think the global

economy, urban life and what we think of as civilization is here to stay. It is

possible that we could destroy all of this in a war that uses weapons of mass

destruction, but most people given the choice want the type of life most New

Yorkers take for granted.

That is of course the problem with the modern environmental movement. There is

this idea that the only way to save the planet is to do without: Get out of your cars,

stop eating meat, shut off the lights and shut down the economy. There is of course

the hypocrisy of that perspective being articulated by folks attending meetings at

elite pow-wows like Davos where they have arrived in private jets or after dining in

the first class cabins of the world’s airlines. It’s not surprising that people resist

those ideas. People in the developing world find the environmentalist ethos of

“denial” to be absurd and people in the middle class here in the west, are not

buying it either.

The solution to climate change is not shutting down the world’s economy but

growing it in ways that can be sustained. We need solar power, carbon capture and

storage and a lot more. Here’s a scary thought: Climate change is only a sample of

what is to come. Climate change is the first human-made change that is big enough

and obvious enough that we have been able to identify it with today’s science.

There is more to come. For many years, Columbia Ecology Professors like Shahid

Naeem and Don Melnick and their colleagues throughout the world have been

telling us about the unpredictable impact of the widespread destruction of species

and biodiversity. To learn more about this check out a video from Professor

Naeem’s recent lecture on “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Process Extinction

Scenarios” currently posted on the Earth Institute’s Web site.

Here is the inescapable conclusion: We are not going to go back to the land and live

in harmony with nature. We like our way of life and want to preserve it. In fact we

need to bring some of the rest of the planet to a higher level of material


consumption than they now enjoy. If we are going to do that we need to learn more

about what we are doing to the planet and how to sustain it. Climate change is just

one part of a growing and complex set of environmental issues that we face. The

answer is not to “deny” the scientific facts, but figure out how to live with them.



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Obama vs. McCain on the Environment at the Opening BellBy Steve CohenJune 6, 2008 | 10:14 a.m.

Now that the Democratic

Party’s Presidential

nominating process has

ended, it is time to compare

the records and positions of

the two remaining major party

candidates. For a Republican,

Senator John McCain has

shown some signs that he

understands the issues of sustainability. He and Senator Joseph Lieberman have

sponsored climate change bills that have almost been enacted. He is making noises

like he might select the environment as the issue to show people that he is not

George W. Bush. However, the League of Conservation Voters, a group that

monitors Congress’ environmental records gave him a score of 0 percent in 2007

and 24 percent life time. In contrast, Senator Barak Obama Sen. Obama scored

67% in 2007 and 86% lifetime. Most of Obama’s decline last year was due to

missed votes related to his campaign schedule. The average score for Members

of Congress in 2007 was 53%.

A very thoughtful piece on McCain’s environmental record was published by

Bradford Plumer in the New Republic in mid-March. Plumer observed that:

Trying to explain McCain's wildly erratic

record on environmental issues is a

maddening task.” He quotes Debbie Sease,

the legislative director of the Sierra Club who

noted that: "We never know where he's going

to come from. As a general rule, on land and

conservation issues ... he tends to be pretty

good. But he's a doctrinaire conservative on

the role of government in protecting people

from pollution." Plumer gives McCain credit

for trying to protect the vistas in Arizona’s

Grand Canyon, “But, when he wasn't

safeguarding Arizona scenery, McCain


+Enlarge





usually held the conservative line, voting to

hollow out clean-water and health

protections or to expand offshore drilling.

Of course, Senators survive politically by representing their states and Presidents

must govern the entire country. It is possible that when faced with making policy

for the entire nation, McCain could transcend his roots. From 1964-1966,

President Lyndon Johnson left behind the racism of his Texas orgins. Under

President Johnson the U.S. passed important legislation in Civil Rights and Voting

Rights and famously made a war on poverty that ended up reducing the nation’s

poverty rate from over 20% to nearly 10%. Of course he also made war on a

country in South East Asia , damaging that nation and this one and impairing his

otherwise impressive legacy. But I digress—the point is-- it is hard to predict how a

McCain Presidency would be for the planet. It couldn’t possibly be any worse than

the current President’s record, but that is setting the bar very low. It is possible

that he could do what California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York

City Mayor Mike Bloomberg have done—strengthen their centrist and visionary

credentials by going green.

So what about the recently anointed presumptive Democratic Presidential

nominee Senator Obama? Obama is a cosponsor of the strongest climate bill in the

Senate, the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act which would

reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. He seems to understand the

importance of sustainable energy to economic growth and if he were elected would

likely be indebted in some way to the environmental community.

In a July, 2007 interview with Grist.org Senator Obama was asked how central

energy and environment would be to his campaign for President and he responded

by stating that:

…energy [has] to be one of the three most important issues that we're

facing domestically, along with revamping our education system and

fundamentally reforming our health-care system. And the

opportunities for significant change exist partly because awareness of

the threat of climate change has grown rapidly over the last several

years…People recognize the magnitude of the [climate] problem and

are ready to take it on. Not only is there environmental concern, but

you're also seeing people who are recognizing that our dependence on

fossil fuels from the Middle East is distorting our foreign policies, and

that we can't sustain economically continuing dependence on a

resource that is going to get more and more expensive over time. As all

those things converge, we have to move boldly on energy legislation,

and that's what I'll do as the next president.

Overall, it seems pretty clear that Obama is the more environmentally-oriented

candidate. Perhaps more importantly, the hard core opposition to enhanced

environmental protection and renewable energy comes from the conservative wing

of the Republican party. Should McCain win, he will owe them more than Obama

would. Moreover, when McCain was pushing his own climate bills in the Senate, he

had trouble getting the votes of his conservative Republican pals. Still the good

news remains that the President with the worst environmental record in our

lifetime will be leaving office in January, 2009. No matter what happens we will all


be able to breathe easier…. or hopefully continue to breathe.

I am grateful for the research assistance of Rachel Dannefer, a graduate student

at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Community Gardens: Protecting the Planet While Feeding ItBy Steve CohenJune 12, 2008 | 9:26 a.m.

While most of the people in

New York City live in

apartment buildings most of

the land in New York City sits

under single family homes.

While New York is nearly

completely built up, there are

places within the city where

there is enough land to grow

some crops. While we are certainly surrounded by concrete and asphalt, the

natural world is never far away in New York City. From small plots to multi-acre

urban farms, New York City’s community gardens turn abandoned lots into urban

oases, feed city residents, and provide community spaces for birthdays, barbeques,

and informal get-togethers.

In addition to benefits such as fostering community and offering green spaces in

neighborhoods lacking sufficient park land, community gardens also have a

positive impact on the environment. Unpaved garden surfaces absorb rainwater

and reduce stress on the city’s sewage system, and many gardens partner with

schools to provide outdoor classrooms for ecology and biology lessons.

Community gardens help cool the city and reduce the urban heat island effect,

caused when the city’s dark surfaces trap heat and

make it hotter than surrounding areas. Green

spaces offered by community gardens can even

reduce the amount of energy used to cool

buildings. According to the EPA’s website,

“Widespread planting in a city can decrease local

surface and air temperatures. Strategic

planting…directly cools the interior of homes and buildings, decreasing air

conditioning costs and peak energy demand.”

While most of our food travels an average of 1,019 miles by the time it reaches

grocery shelves, community gardens are a source of fresh, affordable produce for

city residents which can be transported to the dinner table without the use of fossil





More Columns >> fuels.

As Jacquie Berger, Executive Director of Just Food, points out, “As food prices rise,

people are trying to figure out how they can get food more affordably. With

community gardens, people can get together to grow their own food, which builds

community, saves money and shrinks their carbon foot print all at the same time.”

“If you look at the Mayor’s PlaNYC 2030, there is no mention of food, but it would

be so easy to incorporate food into it,” says Berger. “Abandoned land around NYC

could be converted into places where people could come together and grow food.”

Just Food currently works with more than 35 community gardens to help the

gardeners grow and sell their produce. Through its Training of Trainers program,

Just Food pays experienced gardeners to teach workshops all over NYC on such

topics as seed starting, raising chickens, building raised beds, season extension,

food preservation, and even making baby food. “The Brooklyn Rescue Mission

grew 7,000 pounds of produce last year at their garden in central Brooklyn,” says

Berger. “That year they were growing primarily for their food pantry, but they had

so much that this year we are helping them start a farmers’ market as well.”

GreenThumb, a division of the NYC Parks Department, is the largest urban

gardening program in the country. They work with more than 600 gardens by

providing technical assistance and materials. While some gardens can be pretty

large, ornamental gardens as narrow as 15 feet provide shady benches where

community residents gather.

Added Value, a nonprofit in Red Hook Brooklyn, created an urban farm by

transforming 2.75 acres of city asphalt into fertile land. The farm is now the site of

a youth employment program, a farmers’ market featuring produce from Added

Value as well as regional farmers, and a large-scale composting operation which

accepts waste from area businesses. Neighborhood restaurants proudly hang signs

boasting that their menus feature Added Value’s produce.

Other groups have used gardens as a springboard for organizing around a diversity

of community issues. La Familia Verde, a coalition of gardens and organizations in

the Bronx, has partnered with community-based organizations to organize voter

registration drives, health fairs, and a farmers’ market.

New York City’s urban gardens are rare and threatened treasures. The insatiable

demand for NYC real estate puts these gardens under constant pressure. The More

Gardens! coalition joins with community gardens facing development in order to

fight for their preservation. Using strategies such as camping out—sometimes for

months—in gardens slated for demolition, enlisting the support of local and state

politicians, and even filing a lawsuit against the city, the coalition has helped save

more than 400 gardens from development.

Community gardens eliminate the expenditure of energy used to transport food,

provide cool, green spaces during the sweltering summer months, and give New

Yorkers the most local food possible. When coupled with the local food produced

just north and west of the city and sold at greenmarkets, they provide an important

alternative to industrial farming. As noted in an earlier piece, a city as large as New

York will always need mass agriculture—but every piece of locally food grown and


used is a small step toward sustainability.



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Congestion Charge Comeback?By Steve CohenJune 16, 2008 | 8:38 a.m.

When congestion pricing was

defeated earlier in the spring,

it looked dead forever, but it’s

becoming clear that the idea

may make a comeback. The

reason for the revival is

actually the reason Mayor

Bloomberg proposed it- we

need the money for mass

transit, and we need to reduce

the volume of vehicles in lower

Manhattan. As time goes by, it

becomes clearer that the main

reason for the fee is to raise

money. The absence of the fee

is contributing to a fiscal crisis for the city’s mass transit system.

The New York City region has the best mass transit system in the county, but the

system that is in danger of going through the same decline it went through during

the fiscal crisis of the 1970. It is an understatement to say that this would be a

disaster for the city’s environment and economy.

According to a joint press release of the

Straphangers Campaign and the U.S. Public

Interest Research Group: “Public transportation in

metropolitan New York saved 1.8 billion gallons of

oil in 2006, a savings that amounted to $4.6 billion

for the region. By taking cars off the road and

reducing congestion, transit also prevented

emission of 13,973,040 metric tons of global warming pollution.”

A decade of increased deficit financing of mass transit during the Pataki years has

culminated in the long-predicted mass transit fiscal crisis. Mass transit has been

underfunded for many years, and the lack of funding has finally caught up with us.

As the Straphanger campaign release notes: “With the projected income from

congestion pricing gone, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $17.5





More Columns >> billion deficit in its proposed $29.5 billion five-year capital program.”

Governor Patterson recognizes the problem and has brought back Richard Ravitch,

the guy who rebuilt the mass transit system in the 1980’s, to do it again. Ravitch is

heading a newly formed Commission on Metropolitan Transportation Authority

(MTA) Financing. According to the Governor’s office:

“The Commission is charged with recommending strategies to fund

MTA capital projects and operating needs over the next ten years, a

period when the Authority will be under unprecedented financial

pressure as it expands its system and rebuilds its core infrastructure to

provide the additional capacity needed to allow the region to grow.

Governor Paterson announced in April that Richard Ravitch would

head the Commission in wake of the failure of the congestion pricing

proposal, which would have provided an additional revenue stream to

the MTA.”

The Commission has been asked to look at congestion pricing along with variety of

other revenue sources to help subsidize mass transit. We need to subsidize mass

transit to keep the cost low to riders and entice people out of the cars. We need to

improve the quality of mass transit for the same reason. If the choice is between

sitting in your comfortable private auto and crowding into filthy, unreliable

subway cars, anyone with the ability to chose will avoid mass transit. In the 1980’s

mass transit made a comeback in this region, and the combination of high gas

prices and decent mass transit has increase transit ridership over the past several

months. However, mass transit requires constant investment to keep up the

quality of service. Without a steady stream of funding to maintain and replace

infrastructure, it fall apart.

One potential source of revenue for mass transit is to charge people for use of the

streets in Manhattan’s central business district. One of the few useful points that

Shelly Silver made during his disgraceful handling of the congestion issue this

spring, is that cabs and livery cars should pay a surcharge for travelling in the

congestion zone. A surcharge of a couple of dollars would generate plenty of

revenue without destroying the taxi industry. I also think that fee exemptions

should be available for people with chronic illnesses that need to be driven to

medical care in lower Manhattan. I would also give every car registered in the five

boroughs five free passes per year—to allow them to avoid the fee when they

absolutely must drive to the city during the work day—as long as it wasn’t a regular

commute.

New Yorkers like the freedom and simulation that mobility brings. We have a great

transportation system that is cost effective and environmentally friendly. If we are

to keep it intact and expand it we will need to raise and spend money. There is no

alternative.

I am grateful for the research assistance of Rachel Dannefer, a graduate student

at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.MORE: GREEN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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It’s Not Easy Buying GreenBy Steve CohenJune 19, 2008 | 12:17 p.m

The good news is that more and more people want to reduce their ecological

footprint- the impact that we all have on this fragile and interconnected planet.

The bad news is that some companies care much more about looking green than

being green. Companies have learned that people care about the environment and

are willing to pay for green goods and services. Advertisers and marketing folks are

busy painting the world green. Some of this is real and useful and some of this can

be silly or even deceptive. Fortunately consumer groups and the Federal Trade

Commission have started to pay attention to corporate claims of sustainability. We

have a long way to go as we try to sort this out, but the work has begun.

The Federal Trade Commission hosted a public workshop at the end of April, to

examine developments in green packaging claims and consumer perception of

such claims. This workshop is one component of the Commission’s regulatory

review of the Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (16 CFR Part

260), which the FTC announced in a Federal Register Notice on November 26,

2007.

The FTC released a report recently providing guidance to those looking to “sort

out” environmental claims. Part of it stated: “Recycled” products are made from

items recovered or separated from the “waste stream” that are melted down or

ground up into raw materials and then used to make new products. Or they may be

products that are used, rebuilt, reconditioned, or remanufactured. If a product is

labeled “recycled” because it contains used, rebuilt, reconditioned, or

remanufactured parts, the label must say so —

unless it’s obvious to the consumer. For example, a

used auto parts store may sell used automobile

parts that have been salvaged from other cars and

label them “recycled” without any other

description because it’s plain that they are used

parts. But an office copier that is labeled “recycled”

because it was rebuilt, reconditioned or remanufactured — and then labeled

recycled — must state that the recycled content came from rebuilt, reconditioned

or remanufactured parts. That’s because it may not be obvious that it contains used

parts.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, TerraChoice Environmental

Marketing Vice President Scot Case said, “There should be a big caution to




More Columns >> consumers: Don't base your purchasing decision on some green dot unless you

know what that green dot really means.” (“Green product seals are gray area,”

April 19

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/19/MNHGVQQIC.DTL)

So what does the public really think? According to a recent study from Cone LLC

and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship

(http://greenbizwire.csrwire.com/news/11692.html), almost half of those

surveyed (48%) think "green" products are actually beneficial for the earth, while a

distinctly smaller group--22%--understands that such goods are simply less

harmful than competing products. Seventy-six percent of respondents believe

environmental marketing should be regulated by the government. More findings:

45 percent believe companies are accurately

communicating information about their impact on

the environment

61 percent say they understand the environmental

terms companies use in their advertising

Another important issue is the link between “green” products and their effect on

the environment. According to the Cone poll, 74 percent of Americans say

providing a clear connection between the product/service and the environmental

issue (i.e., a hybrid car and lower emissions) influences their purchasing decisions.

When a company makes claims that don’t hold up, it embarrasses companies and

disillusions consumers, according to Mike Lawrence, executive vice president of

corporate responsibility for Cone LLC. "Activists are closely monitoring green

claims and can quickly share information online about the actual environmental

impact of a product. The result can be accusations that a company is engaging in

'greenwashing' and is misleading the public."

In a press release that highlights the report, Bradley Googins executive director of

The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, said, "The fact that

Americans are so primed to trust companies may suggest the lack of control they

feel around complex environmental issues, so it is not surprising that they also

seek a third-party gatekeeper to help ensure the messages they see and hear are

accurate … Maintaining the trust of consumers needs to be a top priority for

companies."

Concerns about greenwashing and misleading labels has led to the creation of site

such as GreenerChoices.org. Launched on Earth Day 2005 by Consumers Union,

the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, GreenChoices is a Web-based

initiative to inform, engage, and empower consumers about

environmentally-friendly products and practices.

The site offers a Green Labels Center, which helps consumers discover what the

labels on their favorite products really mean. Using the search tool, consumers can

get an expert evaluation of labels on food, wood, personal products and household

cleaners. People can search by product, category, or certifier, and easily compare

labels using the site’s “report cards.”


For more on what makes good labeling, see Consumer Reports’ Eco-lables center:

http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/eco-good.cfm.

The planet’s population is still growing. On April 26 the U.S. Census Bureau’s

population clock showed a U.S. population of 304,002,727 and a world population

of 6,665,486,945. There are more of us than ever and many of us are consuming

more stuff today than we did yesterday.

According to World Bank data from 2003, people in the world’s high-income

countries account for 81.5% of total private consumption expenditures, while

people in the world’s low-income countries account for just 3.6%. Worldwatch

Institute data show that “global private consumption expenditures—the amount

spent on goods and services at the household level—topped $20 trillion in 2000, a

four-fold increase over 1960.”

Rapidly developing nations like China and India are joining the US in our

non-sustainable patterns of consumption. Economic growth will increasingly

depend on our ability to reuse resources and develop sustainably. Buying green

may be mainly symbolic now, but we are learning how to make, advertise and buy

goods that have less impact on the environment. That is a necessary, if perhaps

sometimes frustrating, first step.

MORE: FEDERAL TRADE COMISSION | GREEN | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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We Can't Drill our Way out of the Energy CrisisBy Steve CohenJune 19, 2008 | 12:30 p.m

In 1990, the first Bush

Administration banned off

shore oil exploration and

yesterday the current

President Bush decided to ask

Congress to end the ban. This

is the same policy now being

pushed by Senator John

McCain in his effort to show

he cares about rising gasoline

prices. According to Sheryl

Stolberg in The New York

Times on June 18:

The Congressional moratorium was first enacted in 1982, and has been

renewed every year since. It prohibits oil and gas leasing on most of

the outer continental shelf, 3 miles to 200 miles offshore. Since 1990,

it has been supplemented by the first President Bush’s executive order,

which directed the Interior Department not to conduct offshore

leasing or preleasing activity in areas covered by the legislative ban

until 2000. In 1998, President Bill Clinton extended the offshore

leasing prohibition until 2012. One person familiar with the

deliberations inside the White House said that Mr. Bush was briefed

on Tuesday by his top aides, including Joshua B. Bolten, the chief

of staff, and that the aides recommended lifting the executive order.

This is more of the same short-sighted energy industry dominated nonsense that

we have come to know and love from the crowd that’s been running the nation’s

capital for the last seven plus years. It’s true that there is a lot of oil under the

coasts—maybe 16 billion barrels. But it’s also true that there are a lot of new

drivers in China and India and more to come in the rest of the developing world. A

little more oil may moderate the price of gasoline for a while, but the only real

public policy that will cut fuel prices is to develop a car that uses a renewable and

non-fossil fuel. Fuel prices would also be moderated if we could reduce our federal

deficit a bit and improve the value of the dollar.



President George W. Bush speaks about high gas prices whiledelivering a statement about energy in the Rose Garden at the White House on June 18. In the face of record prices for oil, Bush asked Congress to lift the U.S. ban on offshore oil drilling.



More Columns >> While I’ve come to expect this kind of nonsense from President Bush and Vice

President Cheney, I am disappointed to see it coming from Senator McCain, who

really should know better. Bush and Cheney have already demonstrated that they

are a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry. That industry is convinced that

we can drill our way out of this energy crisis. We can’t. The royal families in the

Middle East’s oil countries get the idea that while modern economies require more

and more energy, the combination of climate change and finite fossil fuels means

that we have an urgent need to develop energy alternatives. They are investing

heavily in solar research. It’s not as if we will ever stop pumping and burning oil.

The market for petroleum will not disappear when we come up with alternatives.

Even if oil is used less as a fuel, it’s value as a feedstock for plastic will continue.

I’ve often thought that the generations to come will wonder why we were so stupid

that we burned all of that petroleum instead of using it as a material in consumer

products and construction. While no one should be concerned about the future of

the petroleum producers, if these companies want to stay in the energy industry

they should be thinking about taking some of their huge profits and investing it in

developing better solar power collectors and batteries.

Given the stock-market driven pressure to increase profits in the present, I am not

surprised that the oil industry is looking for the short-run pay off of increased

drilling in fragile environments. However our government’s leaders should know

better. It’s their job to protect us and that includes keeping our coastlines clean

and our planet from overheating. It’s true that gasoline prices have risen

dramatically and people are suffering. Political candidates are under pressure to

“do something”. The something to be done is to provide a tax rebate or credit to

low income people who rely on their automobile to get to work or school. Let’s help

the people who need the help instead of pandering to wealthy people who can

afford market rates for gasoline. Drilling for coastal oil and ending gasoline taxes

are short-sighted and foolish public policies. They do little to solve our energy

problem and will make the climate crisis worse. John Mc Cain’s political prospects

are not enhanced by his support of these short-run, anti-environmental fixes. The

American people know the fundamental facts about energy and climate and don’t

trust politicians that pander to them. It’s time for a little straight talk from the

Senator from Arizona.

MORE: GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Sustainable South Bronx: Helping the BronxBecome a Sustainable CommunityBy Steve CohenJune 23, 2008 | 9:36 a.m.

There is a small town America

that is idealized in myth and

literature, but even in the

internet age thrives outside

our largest cities. In these

places community spirit and

what used to be called civic

virtue (or values) is nurtured

through local schools,

churches, little league, scouts and a wide variety of community based

organizations. The force of economic power is as present in these places as in large

cities, and I do not want to leave the impression that all is light and joy in these

places, but community is always present and taken for granted.

Here in New York City community must be nurtured in the face of big anonymous

institutions and the speed and intensity that is always present and taken for

granted. We see community being nurtured when families bring their kids to

crowded ball fields, when neighborhoods rather than the “street fair industry” host

block parties and in the hundreds if not thousands of community based

organizations that come and go throughout the five boroughs. Some of these

organizations are started on front porches in Flatbush and never hire staff or even

last very long. Some grow, raise funds and eventually incorporate as nonprofit

organizations. In his classic, Democracy in

America, Alexis de Tocqueville commented about

the tendency we Americans have to join

organizations, a phenomenon he observed in the

19th century:

Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all

dispositions constantly form associations….associations of a thousand

other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted,

enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give

entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct

churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in


+EnlargeFlickr via Satyadasa

Bronx River south of 180th Street.



More Columns >> this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is

proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the

encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at

the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France,

or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to

find an association.

Today, we find social web sites like Facebook provide a way to create and join

groups and thousands of these virtual groups have been formed. Just as de

Tocqueville discovered at the start of the American Republic- Americans are

joiners. The environmental movement is no exception- it is as American as apple

pie. It began at the community level and continues to demonstrate enormous

strength at the grass roots. In the next few months we will use this space to

highlight some of the great community-based environmental groups that are hard

at work throughout New York, making this city sustainable.

One of the best known community based environmental groups is Sustainable

South Bronx. Founded in 2001 by Majora Carter, who received a MacArthur

Foundation “genius” award three years ago, Sustainable South Bronx is dedicated

to achieving “environmental justice through innovative, economically sustainable

projects that are informed by community needs.”

Carter launched Sustainable South Bronx after organizing a successful campaign to

fight a proposal to locate a new waste facility in the South Bronx. The facility would

have brought 40% of the city’s waste to an area that already received a

disproportionate amount of it. Once residents made the connection that

community health problems, such as high child asthma rates, were intrinsically

linked to these land use patterns, people began to mobilize.

According to Deputy Director Miquela Craytor, “We wanted to offer opportunities

which don’t have to come at the expense of health. The communities that haven’t

had green space and haven’t had opportunities are the ones that most deserve

them.”

One of Majora Carter’s first accomplishments prior to starting Sustainable South

Bronx was to secure a $1.25 million federal grant for a feasibility study on

developing a greenway for bicyclists and pedestrians along the South Bronx

Waterfront. Two waterfront parks have already been constructed, which serve as

destination points as part of the greenway plan, and construction of the greenway,

which connects these parks and South Bronx communities, will begin next spring.

The greenway will eventually stretch 11 miles, and will address the disparities in

open space and waterfront access in the South Bronx compared to other areas in

the city. A 5K run planned for this Saturday will celebrate the coming of the

greenway.

In another effort to “green” the community, Sustainable South Bronx is planting

hundreds of trees along the greenway and throughout the Hunts Point peninsula.

“When we started we had the least number of trees per acre of any community in

New York City,” says Craytor. “We were comparable to Warsaw after World War II,

looking like a bombed out city.” So far, almost 400 trees have been planted.

In 2003, Sustainable South Bronx initiated the Bronx Environmental Stewardship

Training. “We realized a lot of jobs can be generated from green space; someone


has to maintain it. No one was training people, so we took the jump to start a job

training program.” The 10-week program is free and open to anyone in New York

City who is over 18, has the equivalent of a high school diploma, and has a “drive to

be outside,” as Craytor puts it.

This year the program will reach 100 graduates. “We’re very proud of it. The

people we train face a lot of barriers––many were formally incarcerated or are

coming off of public assistance,” says Craytor, who rattles off the program’s success

rates, “As of last year 85% of our graduates were employed or in college, and 70%

of them were in the green collar field.” Graduates are now working for the parks

department, doing remediation for brown fields, and working at Sustainable South

Bronx to maintain the street tree network in Hunts Point and the new waterfront

parks.

In February this blog covered a partnership between Sustainable South Bronx and

students at Columbia University to develop a business plan for a green-building

retrofit program, to make buildings “green” through installing energy efficient and

environmentally friendly features. The business plan is now finished, and

Sustainable South Bronx is currently seeking funds to pilot the program, with

hopes to eventually incorporate it into their Bronx Environmental Stewardship

Training.

Advocacy is also a big focus at Sustainable South Bronx. As part of a broader

coalition they brought forward the city’s first equitable trash plan, which requires

Manhattan to begin managing some of its waste. (It currently handles no city

waste, while the South Bronx handles 25%.) That legislation passed the city council

and is now at the state level.

Sustainable South Bronx worked on successful legislation to address shortfalls in

PlaNYC’s storm water management provisions. “PlaNYC didn’t create a clear plan

of action for how the City would assess and encourage best management practices

on public and private properties, nor how implementing these strategies would

result in the creation of jobs” says Craytor.

As a key member of the S.W.I.M. coalition, the organization has also pushed

legislation for a tax credit for green roofs, which has passed both houses in the

New York State legislature. In addition to the legislation, Sustainable South Bronx

launched their own green roof company last fall. Since then they have installed

four green roofs, including their own. The roofs have soil and vegetation, which

help cool buildings and lower energy costs, and reduce pressure on water

treatment systems by absorbing rainfall.

Sustainable South Bronx’s newest program, FabLab (short for Fabrication

Laboratory), was established through a partnership with MIT and serves an

incubator for green manufacturing and design. According to Craytor, “These

FabLabs give people the opportunity to visualize and create solutions to problems

that their communities have. We are using it to think about waste and how to reuse

it.” The FabLab has generated furniture made out of recycled wood and cardboard,

is working to create environmental monitoring devices.

As Craytor sums up, “We’ve changed the landscape of what sustainability means

for poor communities. Our hope is that the South Bronx will no longer be

associated with burned and blighted buildings but with green, innovative projects.”


Community-based environmental groups play a vital role in representing the

public to government and in developing and implementing environmental

improvement projects. Groups like Sustainable South Bronx are particularly

important because they help achieve environmental justice—ensuring that poor

people do not bear the brunt of our society’s environment environmental insults.

To learn more about this terrific group visit http://ssbx.org.

Photos courtesy of Sustainable South Bronx.

MORE: GREEN | PLANNYC | STEVE COHENS BLOG | SUSTAINABLE SOUTH BRONX


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We Need a Real National Rainy Day FundBy Steve CohenJune 25, 2008 | 5:32 p.m

According to the June 25,

2008 edition of the

DesMoines Register, many of

the people who have lost their

homes and farms in the recent

flooding there do not have

federal flood insurance:

"David Maurstab, an assistant

administrator of the Federal

Emergency Management

Agency whose duties include overseeing the flood insurance program, conceded

Tuesday that few Iowans have purchased coverage. FEMA reported that as of

September 2007 there were 10,649 policies in force statewide.

"That is troubling to all of us," Maurstab said. "We have a remarkably low number

of insureds in the affected areas."

The state of Iowa is in excellent fiscal condition and has a $620 million reserve

fund that the state government appears reluctant to send on emergency relief. As

reported by Jason Clayworth in the same June 25 DesMoines Register: "Iowa

ranked 47th in per-capita levels of state and local government public debt in 2005,

according to data from the Census Bureau. Iowa governments have borrowed an

average of $3,941 per person, while the national

average is $6,985, according to the bureau."

Unlike states like Louisiana and Florida which also

suffered weather-related disasters in recent years,

Iowa looks like it will combine local, state, private

and federal resources and be able to fund a

recovery from this recent disaster.

What does this mean for New Yorkers and people in other parts of the country?

Many analysts have noted that the dollar cost of damage from weather-related

disasters is quite high and probably on the rise. The National Oceanographic and

Atmospheric Administration reports that: "The U.S. has sustained 78

weather-related disasters over the past 28 years in which overall damages/costs

reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total normalized losses for the 78 events


+Enlarge



More Columns >> exceed $600 billion"

This does not include the cost of damage from the many smaller disasters that

cause damage that is lower than a billion dollars. Why is the cost of damage so

high? The main reason is that as the United States has grown we find ourselves

moving into areas that were not settled in the past, in part, due to their

vulnerability to weather impacts. Another reason is our own arrogance. If you look

at old beach communities you will find that people did not build their homes right

on the water. They knew that the ocean was unpredictable and didn't mind walking

to the beach to see the ocean. Times have changed: Think of all those pictures we

are always seeing of homes falling off of the shore and into the water in Malibu.

The other probable reason for growing damage costs is changing weather patterns

related to global warming. Many climate scientists predict increased incidences of

extreme weather in the future. As it is often said: "Everybody's talking about the

weather, but no one is doing anything about it." What can be done?

The main thing we can do other than try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is to

develop policies and institutions that enable us to adapt to climate change and

damages from increased exposure of people and their property to harsh weather, If

we suffer over $600 billion in damage over 30 years we need to plan on spending

more than $20 billion a year on response and reconstruction. If something takes

place 80 times in 30 years, it can no longer be seen as an unusual event. Let's

assume that over the next 30 years, the cost of these impacts will double. The

prudent thing to do is to get ready.

We need to do better at predicting weather emergencies and moving people out of

harm's way. We need to use our tax system to accumulate an emergency trust

fund--- a real rainy day fund-that is used to quickly pay the costs of reconstruction.

No more going to the Governor or President with a tin cup to beg for money. No

more pork barrel political shenanigans governing reconstruction assistance. Just

like social security-emergency response and reconstruction must be a right of all

Americans.

Some will argue that this will just encourage people to live in places that are

subject to weather disasters. The answer to that is simple. The payout for

emergency response and reconstruction is a right--- but the tax you pay into the

fund varies by locality according to risk. Just like drivers with accidents pay higher

insurance, so too can communities at greater risk pay more into the emergency

trust fund.

It's time to stop fooling ourselves. Weather disasters can happen anywhere. The

fundamental job of government is to protect people. We need to develop a routine,

competent method of dealing with these emergencies. It must be funded

nationally. New York City is not invulnerable to these impacts. The part of

Brooklyn I grew up in was once part of Jamaica Bay. Lots of New York is built on

old landfill. It can happen here. Let's hope it doesn't, but get ready just the same.


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The Impact of Gasoline PricesBy Steve CohenJune 30, 2008 | 2:31 p.m

I'm on vacation this week,

enjoying the sun, surf and

sand here in Long Beach New

York, where we've had a small

summer home since 1987. I'm

on the West End of town,

where the biggest problem

over the last few years has

been the proliferation of

second and third cars and the

difficulty of parking on the narrow and crowded streets: Until this summer. This

summer the big news is the price of gasoline. In the last year and a half, the price

of gasoline has doubled. In January, 2007 gasoline was less than $2.20 a gallon,

today it is well over $4.00.

Most of the year, I live on Morningside Heights in Manhattan. I'm lucky enough to

walk to work and don't use my car as much as I do when I'm on Long Island. While

New York has a great mass transit system, many people outside of Manhattan still

depend on their cars and drive them every day. They drop off their kids at little

league, go to the supermarket and use their cars to visit friends and family. For

most New Yorkers, and for most Americans, the story this summer is the dramatic

increase in gasoline prices.

The impact of this increase is affecting people's

behavior and will almost certainly influence their

votes this fall. On the behavior side, no one is

buying SUVs and if you want to buy a hybrid car,

you should be prepared to wait a while. The MTA

reports increased use of mass transit and

reductions in toll collections on their bridges and

tunnels. Places like Long Beach, only 23 miles from

Manhattan and a short ride away on the LIRR are

seeing big increases in summer visitors as folks are

hanging out closer to home. People are thinking

about where they are driving and are reminded

about the need to be careful to plan their trips

every time they pay $55 or $60 to fill their gas





More Columns >> Bringing Green Principles Into the American Economy



tanks. This is a major change in our mobility and in

our freedom-oriented lifestyles.

It may be that people will get used to these new

prices and go back to their old way of moving around, but I doubt it. First, there is

no assurance that the price of gasoline will stay at the current level. Second, as the

economy continues to decline many people will simply be unable to afford to pay

these prices.

Which leads to the political impact of high gas prices. As Bill Clinton famously

observed in his 1992 campaign, "It's the economy, stupid". Americans vote their

pocketbooks first and everything else comes later. High gasoline prices are a

constant reminder that the economy is in trouble. John McCain has the

unfortunate luck to be a Republican in the year that his party and his sitting

President are going to be blamed for the sorry state of the economy. Polling data

already reflect Republican weakness this year and the political impact is getting

hard-wired into the American electorate.

Politics is unpredictable and lots can happen between now and November.

However, summer only comes one time a year and people are going to remember

the trips they couldn't take this July 4th. It's also unlikely that the economy will

turn around before the election. The tax rebate stimulus has come and gone, and

while it had a positive impact, it was clearly too little, too late. McCain should be

happy about one thing-it's a good thing that the election is in November instead of

December. The same forces that are driving up the price of gasoline will also drive

up the costs of home heating fuel this winter. It's one thing to reduce vacation

travel-it's another thing to need to wear your winter coat indoors.

America needs to get off of fossil fuels in a hurry. The economy depends on it and

the next President's re-election will require it. Let's see if the people providing

leadership in Washington D.C. are up to the challenge.

MORE: BILL CLINTON | ECONOMY | FOSSIL FUELS | GASOLINE | GASOLINE PRICES | GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN |MTA | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Governor David Paterson’s First 100 Days: AGreen Governor?By Steve CohenJuly 7, 2008 | 11:31 a.m.

On March 17, 2008,

Lieutenant Governor and

former State Senator David

Paterson was suddenly placed

in the center of Albany's storm

and assumed the Office of

Governor. While it may seem

premature, we decided to

review the environmental

record of his first 100 days. New York State's League of Conservation Voters is

known for their thoughtful representation of the electorate's interest, so we asked

them for their view of our accidental governor's environmental record. Marcia

Bystryn, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters observed that:

"In the course of his first 100 days, Governor Paterson has shown that he can work

effectively with the Legislature and that he understands the importance of an

environmental agenda. But the real tests lie ahead. New York will mostly likely

miss the deadline for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative launch in September,

and there is an enormous gap in funding for the MTA that grows larger each day. A

strong executive will be essential to meeting these challenges."

Some specific accomplishments include:

Renewable Energy - Net

Metering A few weeks ago

Paterson announced "an

agreement with the Legislature

on energy legislation that will

authorize increased

development of renewable

energy with a process called net





More Columns >>metering", which should foster investment in

renewable energy in the areas of solar, wind and farm

waste. This law gives small scale generators of

electricity the right to add the electricity to the grid

and then only be charged for their net subtractions of

electrical power after they get credit for the power

they added. As Paterson noted; "... those businesses

with large roof areas present enormous opportunities

for hosting solar energy facilities. If those kinds of

resources are fully realized, it could relieve

significant stress from our already over-burdened

utility grid and improve our energy independence."

Brownfields Legislation. One of the

unanticipated impacts of the 1980 Superfund toxic

waste clean-up program has been to make it difficult

for businesses to operate on land that had been

contaminated with toxic waste. This is because as

soon as you take title to the land you also own all the

potential liability from any toxics that ever escaped

from the land. This has had the effect of causing

industry to abandon inner city "brownfields" and

build factories on exurban and even rural

"greenfields". Greenfields have no toxic liabilities.

Ever since this problem became known, governments

have been trying to encourage brownfield

redevelopment without losing the benefit of

Superfund's rigorous liability provisions.On June 23 Paterson announced an agreement to reform the

brownfield program to continue offering companies a tax break for

cleaning up and redeveloping contaminated sites. Whereas the

reimbursement rate has been 22 percent, "Under the brownfields

revisions, companies will get half of the cost of cleaning a site to the

point it can be redeveloped," Paterson said.

According to New York State Department of Environmental

Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis: "So far, not enough cleanup

money has found its way into the urban core of our cities, where

thousands of Brownfield sites perpetuate blight, create public health

risks and discourage needed investment. This agreement reforms the

Brownfield cleanup program to make it smarter, more effective and


more accountable to taxpayers."

Green Procurement In April Paterson signed an

Executive Order to create a New York State "Green

Procurement and Agency Sustainability Program,"

which will help State agencies to procure green

products and services.

CO2 Sequestering Coal Plan. In June, Paterson

announced "State support for an advanced coal

power plant in Jamestown. Advanced coal

technology could represent the next major step in

addressing global climate change while also helping

to diversify the state's energy supply and create

"clean-tech" jobs Upstate. The plant - which would

be the first of its kind in the world - will serve as a

demonstration facility for a promising new

technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) and

sequesters it underground for permanent storage."

As the Governor correctly pointed out: "There is no silver bullet to

solving the twin threats of climate change and growing energy

demand, and New York should have a comprehensive strategy to

address both. As a state and a nation we need to be less dependent on

foreign energy supplies. China is building one new, uncontrolled coal

plant every week. Therefore, we must act immediately to find ways to

generate electricity, use energy wisely maintain energy diversity and

create jobs locally. This comprehensive strategy has the potential to

drive technology and innovation, improve our energy security, reduce

energy price volatility, and create clean-tech jobs throughout the State,

particularly Upstate."

Congestion Pricing and Mass Transit. .

Although it had no practical impact, the Governor

did support New York City's Congestion Pricing plan.

He also convened the MTA's Ravitch Commission to

look at the problems of funding mass transit in New

York over the next decade. Improved mass transit is

one of the highest priority items on the state's

sustainability agenda.

Green Buildings. He won approval of a new

program that will enable the New York State Energy


Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to

provide financial incentives to New Yorkers who "go

green." The Governor and First Lady Michele Paige

Paterson have also initiated the "Greening the

Mansion" initiative, to retrofit the NYS Executive

Mansion to enable it to be certified as a green

building.

While all these steps provide an indication that Governor Paterson cares about

environmental issues, we do not yet know how effective he will be. On the biggest

early test of his clout, congestion pricing, he was boxed out of the action by Shelly

Silver. Perhaps we should attribute that to rookie miss-steps. (Not the kind of

"green" governor we are after...)The next test will be far less visible but far more

important. The 1996 Environmental Infrastructure Bond has been fully spent, and

a new Environmental Infrastructure Bond Act is needed to improve outdated

environmental infrastructure across the state. Sewage treatment and water

filtration plants that were built in the 1980's and 1990's are due for modernization.

Governor Paterson has replaced the ridiculous confrontational style brought by

disgraced former Governor Spitzer with a calm, consensus building approach.

People like him and want to cooperate with his program. His obvious intelligence,

determination, good humor and charm are tremendous assets to his emerging

administration. Can he overcome the dysfunction and pay-for play tradition of one

of the worst state governments in the United States? Can he build a governing

coalition that acts in the public interest instead of for the benefit of special

interests? The jury is out, but I remain hopeful.

I am grateful for the research assistance of Rachel Dannefer, Masters Student,

Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

MORE: BROWNFIELDS | CONGESTION PRICING | DAVID PATERSON | ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION | GREEN |MTA | RENEWABLE ENERGY | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Running From the PresidencyBy Steve CohenJuly 8, 2008 | 10:48 a.m.

I made the mistake of

watching some of the T.V.

coverage of the Presidential

campaign last night—I guess

that's what happens when the

Yankees have the night off and

I'm too tired to do anything

else. Listening to the

commentary is mind numbing

and most of it ranges from misleading to out and out inaccurate.

As I watched these candidates move around in the security and media bubble of

the modern Presidential campaign I was thinking that they must feel as if they've

been abducted by aliens. Poor Barack Obama-he's going to travel to Iraq so he

mentioned that while he was there he might listen to what the military folks have

to say. Suddenly "Obama is moving to the right on the war". And poor John

McCain- who told him that he had to smile all of the time? When he laughs at

something funny his eyes smile and he seems to laugh with his whole being. When

he has to wear his media-consultant smile it's genuinely painful to watch.

For Obama, the issue the other night was moving his acceptance speech from the

20,000 seat venue to the 70,000 seat venue. This was considered by the punditry

to be an example of the same ego mania that resulted in the faux presidential seal

podium plaque of the other week. Never mind that

John Kennedy gave his acceptance speech in the

100,000 seat Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960. This

was considered a move worthy of news time on all

the 24 hour news channels. I could only take so

much of this stuff, so I turned on the stereo,

opened a book and turned off the tube.

I hope these guys running for President are not

watching this nonsense too much. I know that

CNN's ratings have been going up with this endless

Presidential campaign. There must be money in

this campaign coverage or these folks would be

paying more attention to Christie Brinkley, A-Rod








and Madonna. I know that like any long-running

soap opera, the show needs some plot twists to

keep the viewers watching. Is McCain really too

old? Is Obama a closet conservative? Is he a closet

Muslim? Is McCain still a maverick or has he sold out to the dark side of the force?

Stay tuned to this channel....

Has anyone noticed that there really are some critical "issues" out there? It's true

that Presidential races are not just about "issues" but about the character of the

candidates. In an uncertain world, we don't really know what challenges we will

face in the next four or eight years. What worries me is that we have designed a

Presidential selection process that virtually guarantees that only unbalanced

people will enter the race. If Obama and McCain where normal folks before

running for President, it's hard to believe they are normal today. In other words,

you probably have to be crazy to run for President, but if you're not at the start of

the campaign, you've got to be by the end of it.

Getting to the issues, let me mention that over a billion people on the planet are

living in dire poverty. What is America's moral responsibility to those people? The

planet is getting warmer and we are having trouble making sure there is adequate

food and water for the humans who live here. Here in the United States of America

we have created wealth and health unequaled in human history. However for the

first time it is not clear that our children's life will be as good as ours. While we

moan about gasoline approaching $5 a gallon, we still seem unwilling to make the

investments in the infrastructure, scientific research and education that will be

needed to make our wealth sustainable.

In 1798 Thomas Mathus published An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Simply put his theory was that population would grow faster than food supply on

our finite planet. The one element that he could not fully factor into his theory was

the impact of technology. Technology has made it possible for us to live longer and

healthier (which increases demand on food), but also has allowed us to grow more

food than we ever could naturally. Technology has allowed us to both poison and

detoxify our natural environment

Despite the wonders of modern technology, we are seeing the strains in our

technologically dependent world. What are our candidates saying about these

fundamental issues? We need to invest in our future. We need to build our

educational institutions to make sure our kids can compete in the global economy.

We need to invest in science and research and development. We need to spend

money on infrastructure-especially alternatives to fossil fuel based transportation.

That may mean a little less partying today to ensure that our way of life is

sustainable. I know that this is not the stuff that tests well in the focus groups

convened by political consultants. Still, I suspect that with some leadership,

Americans would respond to a real challenge. Many of us would support a

candidate who acknowledges these issues and makes it clear that we have the

capacity to deal with them. While I'm not expecting it in this campaign, I'd like to

be proven wrong. Maybe the candidates can escape from the Alien space ship they

are travelling in and let us know what they really think.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CLIMATE CHANGE | FOSSIL FUELS | GASOLINE PRICES | GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN |PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Recycling Street WasteBy Steve CohenJuly 10, 2008 | 1:12 p.m

New York City produces a lot

of garbage. Over 36,000 tons

of solid waste is produced

every day by the city's

8,300,000 residents and

millions of workers and

visitors. While New York still

has not developed an effective

waste management system,

and the Bloomberg Administration made some unfortunate changes in recycling

rules in their first term, there seems to be a growing awareness that we have a

major problem on our hands. The solution to our waste problem has four key

dimensions:

Waste reduction.1.

Better waste transport.2.

Better waste disposal.3.

Increased recycling.4.

A small, but symbolically important part of the recycling puzzle is recycling waste

in public spaces. Have you ever wondered why New York City's streets don't

feature the same recycling receptacles alongside the waste bins that you find in

Toronto, London, Portland, Seattle, and other cities? Well, this is starting to

change. Thanks to a public space recycling

program piloted in New York City last year, we

now have recycling bins in a small number of parks

and other public spaces, and legislation has been

proposed to expand the program.

New York City first experimented with public

recycling containers in the early 1990's, when

recycling became mandatory in the city, but

discontinued the practice after finding

contamination of recycling bins too high to justify

the added expense of separate recycling collection.

However, through an agreement between the

Bloomberg Administration and the City Council as


+EnlargeFlickr via ianqui



More Columns >> Understanding Public Opinion About the Environment part of the October 2006 Solid Waste Management

Plan, New York City is making another attempt to

recycle waste in public spaces.

The pilot program that started in 2007 yielded much better results than in the

old days, especially with paper recycling bins, which had an average contamination

rate of 5%. Bottle and can recycling was not as successful, yielding both less waste

(measured in tonnage) and having a much higher contamination rate of 37%. The

program has now moved out of the pilot phase, and been expanded to thirteen

sites throughout the city, with at least two in each borough.

According to Kathy Dawkins, Director of Public Information at the NYC

Department of Sanitation, "Public Space Recycling works in some public spaces

but not universally. The two main ingredients for success are heavy foot traffic and

additional local control like a BID or [a] well maintained...heavily used park such

as Union Square and Battery Park."

Might this program expand to become the rule, rather than the exception, in public

spaces in NYC? Earlier this year, Council Member Jessica Lappin introduced

legislation to expand the public recycling program to parks throughout the City.

According to her office, at a hearing of the City Council in February, "the

Department of Sanitation testified to the success of the program and suggested

that the Council Member's legislation be amended to include more sites in heavily

trafficked areas." The Sanitation Commissioner has agreed to 22 sites, "and the

program is rolling out this summer. After these sites are tested we will be

amending the legislation to include even more sites for public recycling."

As the Department of Sanitation points out, "all plans are subject to available

funding." They are considering selling advertising on recycle bins as one way to

fund their cost.

According to Kate Krebs, Executive Director of the National Recycling Coalition,

recycling bins are now found in many cities in the United States, as well as sporting

venues, parks, and institutions. However, Krebs notes that, "They are not

everywhere-they are not standard yet."

One factor which may prove a challenge in promoting public space recycling is that

although in New York the amount of waste-and therefore recyclables-tossed into

street corner garbage cans appears tremendous, waste from public spaces only

represents a small fraction of the City's total waste stream.

Even so, it makes sense to do what we can to make it easy for people to keep

recyclables out of landfills. Also, expanding public space recycling would reinforce

NYC's image as an environmentally forward-thinking city, and it could help other

cities to establish the practice.

As Krebs says, "If we could get a toehold in a city like New York...then I think it

would be standard."

In addition to increased recycling in public spaces, Krebs dreams of having a

uniform receptacle to be used nationally. "I want a standard recycling bin for the

U.S. that would be as easily recognizable as a blue mailbox." And, this is something

the National Recycling Coalition has been advocating for. Says Krebs, "We run a

bin grant program where we give away bins for public spaces, and we are working

with bin designers to develop a standard look and feel for public spaces."


Even if you haven't seen any of the recycling bins in NYC's streets and parks, you

may have noticed that trash cans in subway stations now bear signs saying,

"Can it for a greener planet!" According to these signs, recyclables are sorted from

the trash after collection. This system was implemented after recycling containers

put on platforms on a trial basis yielded high contamination rates, questioning the

value of the work of maintaining recycling bins and the security risk. The MTA's

current system of sorting out recyclables after waste collection means that 40% of

that waste is diverted from a landfill.

New Yorkers seem to think they don't have the time to dispose of paper in a paper

bin and bottles in a bottle bin. We also thought we'd never learn how to replace

subway tokens with swipe cards. Somehow we managed to cope. It may take a

while, but we can learn how to sort public garbage. You know, every litter bit

helps....

MORE: GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | MTA | PUBLIC SPACE | RECYCLING | STEVE COHENS BLOG | WASTEMANAGEMENT


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Pete Seeger: A Green Hero for Our TimeBy Steve CohenJuly 15, 2008 | 10:05 a.m.

Over the weekend I had the

pleasure of reading Peter

Applebome's wonderful

piece in the New York

Times about the new River

Pool at Beacon a swimming

"pool" in the Hudson River

that Pete Seeger and some

friends dedicated last week.

Many people know the story of

Pete Seeger, who brought

American folk music to the hit

parade with the Weavers in

the 1950's and was then

blacklisted and banned from

TV for refusing to cooperate with the communist-hunting House Un-American

Activities Committee (HUAC). When brought before the committee in the mid

1950's, he asserted that testifying against his will was a violation of the first

amendment's protection of free speech and refused the protection offered by the

5th amendment protection against self-incrimination. In 1957 he was indicted for

contempt of Congress, was convicted of this offense and then very nearly went to

jail.

Seeger was brought back to commercial network

T.V. by the Smothers' Brothers where he sang his

anti-war folk song, "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy".

The first time he sang it, CBS TV's censors cut it

out of the show. The Smothers' Brothers then

invited him to sing it a second time and it was

finally broadcast. While Seeger's advocacy always included peace and labor issues,

in the late 1960's he began to focus on the environment as well.

In fact, even before there was a federal water pollution law there was a sloop called

the Clearwater. According to the Clearwater website:

"In 1966, folk singer and activist Pete Seeger had the vision that the



Peter Seeger in 1978.



More Columns >> public would come to care for all of our threatened waterways by

learning to care for one boat and one river. He inspired a group of

dedicated people who made the dream a reality. Launched in 1969,

Clearwater serves as a moveable classroom, laboratory, stage, and

forum."

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act was passed in 1972 over then President

Richard Nixon's veto. Pete Seeger was an important voice in the chorus that

demanded government action on cleaning up our water. For nearly forty years the

Clearwater has continued its educational mission. It has long been a force for

environmental clean-up and education in New York. When my daughters were in

elementary school I was a class parent on a Clearwater voyage and it was

memorable and effective. Seeger's imagination and practical approach to

education and problem solving created a lasting and important institution.

Last weekend I walked by the new Hudson River pier that looks like it will soon

open in Harlem across the street from the Fairway grocery on 125th street. That

park and the bike path it connects with down to Greenwich Village would not have

been possible without the Hudson River clean-up that Pete Seeger helped start in

the late 1960's. What Seeger has always understood is that the way to build support

for clean water is to make sure that people can experience it and enjoy it.

I think it's true that the eight million plus people living in New York City can enjoy

their lives without experiencing the rivers, oceans, mountains, deserts and

countryside that still dominate our increasingly urban planet. I believe that our

lives are enriched by experiencing nature, but without parks and sloops New

Yorkers might never take the time to enjoy them.

Pete Seeger is a "green hero" because he knows that we need to mix advocacy with

education and education with enjoyment. The joy of the breeze off the Hudson on a

summer night can carry you through a slushy walk in midtown in February. The

school kids that spend a few hours on the Clearwater will never see the river in

quite the same way that they did before their voyage-and perhaps more

importantly they will see the river the next time they look at it.

The new River Pool in Beacon is simply the latest in a long list of songs, ideas,

innovations and actions invented or promoted by Pete Seeger. We owe this modest

man a debt of gratitude. Think about it the next time you take a peek at the

Hudson.

MORE: CLEARWATER | ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM | GREEN | HUDSON RIVER | PETE SEEGER | RICHARD NIXON| STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Energy and the Sinking EconomyBy Steve CohenJuly 20, 2008 | 9:46 a.m.

Last Thursday, former Vice

President Al Gore joined the

many voices that have been

calling for a crash program-a

"moon-shot" national effort to

get us off of fossil fuels.

Senator Obama applauded the

speech saying "For decades, Al

Gore has challenged the

skeptics in Washington on

climate change and awakened

the conscience of a nation to

the urgency of this threat."

At the moment, neither

Senator Obama nor Senator McCain are taking as aggressive a position as Gore is

taking. The energy industry doesn't know how to deal with this newest energy

crisis. At the heart of the discussion is the impact of our current energy practices

on our economic well-being and on national security.

Even a casual examination of the data tells us that our current energy path is not

sustainable. Global warming from the use of fossil fuels has already arrived. Fossil

fuels damage our environment and require importation from some parts of the

world we would like to be less dependent on. While

there is lots of fossil fuel left, it is a finite resource

that will eventually be depleted. This is the

moment to begin to move our economy away from

fossil fuels. While some fear the costs of this

transfer, I believe it is an opportunity that could

strengthen the American economy.

Last Friday, the Texas state government approved

a nearly $5 billion dollar project to build

electrical transmission lines that would bring wind

power generated in the western part of the state to

Dallas, Houston and other major Texas towns.








This past Saturday the New York Times business

columnist Joe Nocera wrote a piece on the

commercialization of the electric car. He posed the

central question: Are these cars "costly toys or a

new era for drivers"?

Interestingly, the original cars were in fact little more than expensive toys when

they were first developed. Then a manufacturing genius named Henry Ford figured

out how to mass produce a relatively affordable car called the Model T-and the

rest, as they say, is history. Nocera reports that battery technology now allows

electric cars to go 200 miles between charges. Most people drive less than 50 miles

a day. With gasoline approaching $5 a gallon, and the possibility that we could

charge our cars from fossil fuel free power plants, perhaps there is a way to kick

our relentless addiction to the internal combustion engine and the oil that fuels it.

Energy is at the heart of the environmental problem. It is also at the center of our

suddenly collapsing economy. While oil alone did not cause the war in Iraq, no one

can deny the connection between energy and our Mid-East policy. The war in Iraq

has caused deficits which weakened our economy. Our need for foreign oil has

fueled our trade deficit (excuse the pun). Solve the energy crisis and we no longer

need OPEC's oil. Then we can stop sending our soldiers and our dollars to the

Mid-East.

Everyone worries that the capital costs of transferring our energy infrastructure

from oil, gas and coal to solar, geothermal and wind will simply cost too much.

While it will redistribute economic power from old companies to new ones, it will

almost certainly ensure that energy will cost less in the future than it does today.

Lower cost energy can make our economy more productive and more competitive.

Chaper energy allows higher priced labor to compete with lower priced labor.

The factor left out of the cost equation we often see is technological innovation.

Our current energy system is getting old in a hurry. We need to stimulate rapid

technological change. Computing power provides a useful example of rapid

technological change. Think of the laptop you owned three years ago. Your current

computer is faster, does more, and is probably no more expensive then that one.

The cost of communication and information continues to come down. With

investment, focus and ingenuity, we can create a new energy industry that would

help our economy, protect our environment and create an incredibly powerful

export industry. What do we need to do?

Invest in university-based basic energy science and

engineering

Provide tax incentives for the private sector to

innovate in non-fossil, non-nuclear energy

technology

Re-open the nation to immigration of scientists,

experts and skilled workers

Provide a regulatory environment that encourages

sustainable development and environmental


protection. In other words, get serious once again

about government protecting the environment.

Many of us have been calling for a "moon-shot" type project to develop non-fossil

fuel technology. But none of us are Nobel Prize winning former Vice Presidents

who received more popular votes for President than anyone else did in the 2000

election. Al Gore once again has demonstrated bold and visionary leadership and

deserves our admiration for giving public voice and attention to this critical issue.

MORE: AL GORE | BARACK OBAMA | ECONOMY | ELECTRIC CARS | ENERGY POLICY | GLOBAL WARMING |GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN | STEVE COHENS BLOG | TEXAS


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Paying for Mass Transit without Raising FaresBy Steve CohenJuly 24, 2008 | 8:50 a.m.

One of the central elements of

Mayor Bloomberg's plan for a

sustainable New York City is

to improve mass transit and

get people out of their cars

and into busses and subways.

In addition to better and more

frequent transit service, the

city also needs to ensure that

the price of mass transit is

kept under control. In the aftermath of the defeat of congestion pricing, we see that

mass transit in this region is under greater financial stress than at any time since

the fiscal crisis of the mid 1970's.

State and local tax collections are in decline, and the MTA bears the burden of the

Pataki philosophy of borrowing to fund transit infrastructure. As a result, the MTA

is about to raise mass transit fares for the second time in two years. Gene

Russianoff of NYPIRG's Straphanger's Campaign argued the other night

that the city contributes too little to the cost of transit-providing only 4% of the

MTA's budget. Mayor Bloomberg expressed no interest in raising the city's subsidy

and pushed the MTA to do more with less. Former Mayor Ed Koch made the point

that fare payers should pay about 50% of the cost of their ride and Russianoff

maintained that riders now pay 58% of the cost of

each ride.

In Wednesday's Daily News, Pete Donahue

wrote that:

"City bus and subway riders pay a bigger share of

transit operating expenses than straphangers

across the nation... MTA bus riders pay 40% of

NYC Transit division expenses through fares while

subway riders cover 72%, federal transit data show.

Riders in other major cities or metropolitan areas

like Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and San

Francisco pay significantly less. MTA officials say







comparisons are unfair because riders here have a

system unlike any other - with 468 subway stations

and 24-hour service."

The MTA response misses the point. New York's larger system also includes larger

ridership, and higher revenues to go along with higher expenses. The issue actually

has nothing to do with the MTA-and everything to do with our elected officials in

Albany who during the Pataki years steadily reduced subsidies for mass

transportation. The issue is one of public policy priorities, not the management

practices of the MTA. The goals of an effective transportation system are to move

people from place to place at the least possible cost and the highest possible speed

in as pleasant a way as possible. In this region that means mass transit. Our high

population density requires us to reduce the use of autos. We all know that mass

transit is more energy efficient and less destructive of the environment than the

auto. Currently we use a variety of sources, including bridge tolls, to subsidize

mass transit. Obviously, these subsidies are insufficient.

Keeping the fare low requires greater efficiency at the MTA, but no matter how

efficient the agency is, public subsidies are still needed. One source of revenue for

mass transportation is the real estate transfer tax which has been declining at the

same time that energy costs have been rising. Debt service for the MTA is also

growing and will total 20% of their budget by 2012. Mass transit is caught in a cost

squeeze and new forms of revenue are needed. Some of the capital needs of the

agency should be borne by the state and city and not be part of the MTA's budget.

Former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch and his state-appointed Commission are

looking at transit financing and hopefully will develop a realistic long-term plan.

The plan needs to take another look at congestion pricing and on raising the other

taxes now charged on autos, trucks and taxis.

We need to get away from the idea that mass transit can be funded on the cheap.

Capital finance-or borrowing for infrastructure-is appropriate, if the revenue

sources are removed from the fare box. If a facility is being used for a decade, it

makes sense to pay it off in ten years. One of the best potential sources of revenue

for mass transit remains congestion pricing. Maybe, if the choice is between higher

fares or high auto use fees, our courageous leaders will reconsider congestion

charges. I wouldn't make any bets...

MORE: CONGESTION PRICING | GEORGE PATAKI | GREEN | MASS TRANSIT | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | MTA | NEWYORK CITY SUBWAYS | PLANNYC | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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A Cleaner and Even Swimmable Hudson RiverBy Steve CohenJuly 27, 2008 | 11:02 p.m

In the early 1980's a water engineer once described the Hudson River to me as "the

biggest and fastest flushing toilet in the world". Until the North River sewage

treatment plant opened in 1986 for what was called "advanced preliminary

treatment" we dumped all of the west side's raw sewage straight into the

Hudson. No wonder Riverside Drive is about ¼ mile from the river--up on a bluff

with railroad tracks and later a park and highway between the fancy apartments

and the river. No wonder the most expensive residential avenues in Manhattan,

5th Avenue and Park Avenue, were traditionally those furthest from the East and

Hudson Rivers. The goal was to get as far away from the rivers as possible.

Times have changed. New parks bring New Yorkers right next to the river. This all

became possible with the construction in the 1980's of the west side's North River

Sewage Treatment Plant. According to the New York City Department of

Environmental Protection:

The North River wastewater treatment plant is located on the Hudson

River, west of the West Side Highway from 137th Street to 145th

Street. The plant provides wastewater treatment for the hundreds of

thousands of people who live and work in or visit the west side of

Manhattan, from Bank Street in Greenwich Village to Inwood Hill at

the island's northern tip. North River treats about 125 million gallons

of wastewater every day during dry weather, and it is designed to

handle up to 340 million gallons a day when

the weather is wet...

The North River wastewater treatment plant

is built on a 28-acre reinforced concrete

platform over the Hudson River. It rests on

2,300 caissons pinned into bedrock up to

230 feet beneath the river. The roof of the

building is the home of Riverbank State Park, a popular recreational

facility with three swimming pools, an amphitheater, an athletic

center, a skating rink, a restaurant and sports fields -- and, of the two

New York State park facilities in the City, the only one built on top of a

water pollution control plant.




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The construction of the plant in West Harlem was the subject of great controversy.

In 1962, when the plant was first being planned, its proposed location was West

72nd Street. Somehow, the plant miraculously floated upstream from a well-to-do

neighborhood to a working class community of color. In fact, WE ACT, West

Harlem Environmental Action, one of the city's most prominent environmental

justice groups, was founded by Peggy Shepard and colleagues in 1988 to address

problems related to the operation of the plant. According to WE ACT's web

site:

The North River Sewage Treatment Plant's problem proved to be a

rallying point with residents who complained about the foul odors

emanating from it and about suffering from respiratory problems since

it began operating in April 1986. Using strong community mobilization

tactics and a key civil disobedience strategy, "The Sewage Seven" -

then West Harlem District Leaders Shepard and Sutton, State Senator

David Paterson, former Councilmember Hilton Clark and three others

- were arrested for holding up traffic at 7 a.m. on the West Side

Highway in front of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant on

Martin Luther King Day, January 15, 1988. Gas masked, placard

carrying community residents held up traffic across from the plant on

Riverside Drive to dramatize the unbearable situation.

Three months later, WE ACT formed with three key objectives: to force

the City of New York to fix the North River Sewage Treatment Plant, to

gain the ability to participate in determining future siting and planning

decisions in West Harlem, and to affect the public policy agenda by

positioning environmental justice as a major political issue...WE ACT

met with numerous City and State officials through the years in an

effort to exact a plan of action for correcting the plant's operational

flaws. However, it took a lawsuit to make the City respond. On

December 30, 1993, WE ACT reached a settlement of its lawsuit

against the City for operating the North River Sewage Treatment Plant

as a public and private nuisance.

The clean up of the Hudson is far from complete, and has come at great cost and

struggle, but earlier this week, my colleagues Michael Purdy, Director of

Columbia's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (the scientific heart of the Earth

Institute), along with Observatory scientists Greg O'Mullan, Andrew Juhl and

Raymond N. Sambrotto, announced a river monitoring collaboration with

Riverkeeper. Monitoring the river in 2006 and 2007, this research collaboration

found the river to be substantially cleaner than it was before clean up began in the

1970's. However, the quality of the Hudson's waters is still subject to great

variability. Riverkeeper and Columbia plan to conduct monthly monitoring studies

in the next several years and make these results available to the public each month.

The Hudson River has always been important to New Yorkers, but its use as a

recreational site is growing. As I wrote in my recent posting on Pete Seeger,

people are now interested in swimming in the Hudson. A new park on the river is

about to open in Harlem, across the street from Fairway Supermarket. It's not hard

to project that on a hot summer day people will want to do more than look at the

river. Some of them will want to jump in and cool off. Of course, in addition to the


potential toxicity of the water itself, people will want to be mindful of the river's

incredibly strong current. The west side riverfront is now dominated by waterside

parks, where once we saw heavy industry, freight receiving piers and floating

sewage. The benefit of this resource is obvious to anyone wishing to take a look.

We owe our thanks to the people who built the treatment plant, to the community

leaders who struggled to make sure it ran well, and to the advocates and scientists

who work at Riverkeeper, the Clearwater and the Lamont Doherty Earth

Observatory. Together, they have made sure that we are leaving this small part of

our planet in better shape than we found it. We really can't ask for more.



MORE: EARTH OBSERVATORY | GREEN | HARLEM | HUDSON RIVER | PETE SEEGER | RIVERKEEPER | STEVECOHENS BLOG | WASTEWATER TREATMENT | WE ACT


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Wasted Again: What Can We Do With All of That Garbage?By Steve CohenJuly 30, 2008 | 7:46 p.m

As summer heats up, our

thoughts return to

garbage--specifically New

York City's garbage. As I've

mentioned before, it would be

hard to invent a more

environmentally damaging, or

more expensive system of

waste management, than the

one we use. To reiterate--in

New York City we collect the

garbage that residents place

on the curb and then dump it

on the floor of huge

warehouses that tend to be

located in low-income neighborhoods. We then scoop it up and load it on to trailer

trucks and ship it far away--mostly to landfills (dumps), or waste-to-energy plants

(incinerators). In the old days, when we had more vacant land in the city, we

dumped the garbage in our own landfills. When I was a kid we had the Fountain

Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue landfills in Brooklyn--which some of us called

the Brooklyn Alps as the dump grew higher and higher. Of course, Staten Island

had its incredible Freshkills Landfill. The story is told that there are two human

made objects visible from outer space: The Great

Wall of China and the Freshkills Landfill. Ah, the

good old days.

Still, not every city has the ability to cart their trash

to a landfill in Pennsylvania, so what do other

cities do with their waste? In 2005, some of the

students in Columbia's Masters in

Environmental Science and Policy Program explored alternative waste

management practices around the world and identified a number of alternatives to

land-filling.

My colleague Dr. Nicholas Themelis of Columbia's Engineering School has also


+EnlargeFlickr via ShellyS



More Columns >> been exploring technological options to land-filling for well over a decade. He has

been particularly interested in the technological developments in waste-to-energy,

particularly how to reduce emissions from garbage incineration. As my students

and Dr. Themelis have observed, there are many interesting examples of

sophisticated waste management outside of the United States.

A terrific example is waste management in Barcelona, Spain. In 2001, Barcelona's

Metropolitan Environmental Agency initiated construction on two new integrated

waste treatment facilities to manage the city's waste. The facilities, called Ecopark 1

and Ecopark 2, now process more than 40% of the waste they receive into biogas

and compost, and recover an additional 5% for recycling. Ecopark 2 alone

processes almost 20% of Barcelona's waste, in part by using anaerobic digestion, a

system which processes biodegradable waste without oxygen. The biogas and

methane produced by anaerobic digestion are used to generate electricity, a

portion of which the facility uses for its own operations.

Prior to building the Ecopark facilities, Barcelona's waste agency launched an

aggressive campaign to involve the community and build support for the facilities.

This campaign involved everything from designing the buildings to reflect the

region's legacy of world-class architects such as Antonio Gaudi to door-to-door

visits to give residents kits for separating kitchen waste.

Barcelona's waste facilities are now a destination for school field trips, and the

Metropolitan Environmental Agency has organized conferences, training, and

other events to promote education around waste treatment. After the Ecoparks

were successfully up and running the city ran a TV commercial thanking

Barcelona's residents for separating their waste.

Japan is a crowded island where land is simply to valuable to use for garbage

dumps. Their scarcity of land has led them to using ever-advancing technology to

deal with their waste. They rely heavily on waste incineration and intensive

recycling. Though recycling policies vary throughout the country, most Japanese

families separate their waste into at least six recycling categories. The town of

Kamikatsu in Japan has implemented a "zero waste" policy which

requires residents to do their own composting. The town has a "zero waste"

recycling center where residents sort their waste into 34 categories, which include

categories for Styrofoam, razors, and bottle caps. The town implemented this

strategy after realizing it was much cheaper than incineration. Though a recent poll

showed that 40% of residents were not happy with the program, the mayor is

undeterred given the good it does for the environment.

Though a portion of New York City's waste stream does get recycled, we could be

diverting almost half of what we currently send to landfills without the stringent

measures taken in Kamikatsu, Japan. Fifteen percent of what's put into our trash

bags is actually recyclable paper which just needs to be correctly sorted. The

biggest component of waste that we currently send to landfills is "organics", a

category including food and yard waste, which comprises nearly half (47%) of what

we send to landfills.

Large scale composting of organics is not just a foreign concept-cities and towns in

the United States are doing it, and New York City has been investigating the

possibility. After pilot programs asking residents and institutions to separate their

food waste for curbside pick up were unsuccessful, the City began investigating

municipal solid waste composting. With municipal solid waste composting,

rather than having residents separate out organic waste, solid waste is transported


to a central facility where the degradable portion is recovered and composted, and

the non-degradable portion is separated for recycling and for disposal. This

process can be combined with the type of curbside recycling program we currently

have. New York City undertook a study about municipal waste composting in 2004

which involved actually sending some waste to a composting facility in

Massachusetts, and developing a theoretical pilot facility for New York City.

Another study was published in 2004 for New York City which looked at a

variety of waste management and recycling technologies, including the anaerobic

technologies like those used in Barcelona

While the city tries to figure it out, some individuals and businesses have taken

things into their own hands. More than 300 New York City restaurants have food

waste picked up by a company called Action Carting Environmental for

composting.

The Lower East Side Ecology Center accepts household food scraps at various

Greenmarket locations. They compost 60 tons of organic materials a year using a

unique closed-container composting system. The organization then sells the

finished compost, which it calls "New York pay dirt".

Is any of this realistic? Can the people living in this fast-paced place do a better job

of disposing their waste? Can a city struggling with a financial crisis invest in the

infrastructure to do a better job of handling our waste? The real question is can we

afford not to. According to a May 2007 report of the Independent Budget Office,

New York City's Department of Sanitation spending for waste disposal grew from

$78.88 a ton in 2005 to $92.59 in 2008. Spending for waste disposal grew from

$258 million to nearly $300 million during that span of time. While the cost of

recycling also went up from $29 to $40 dollars a ton, recycling still costs less than

half as much as disposal. Every ton of garbage we recycle instead of dumping saves

the city over $50 bucks. Additional recycling can save the city money and could

actually help contribute to solving the fiscal crisis.

It makes sense that if we figure out how to reuse the stuff we would otherwise

throw out, we can save money. When you give your old winter coat to Goodwill

instead of tossing it in the garbage, the city saves the cost of land filling the coat

and someone gets a low-cost piece of essential clothing. This may be an

oversimplification, but there is no question that reducing waste reduces costs.

Click here for more information on composting in NYC.

MORE: BARCELONA | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | COMPOSTING | GREEN | JAPAN | RECYCLING | STEVE COHENSBLOG | WASTE MANAGEMENT


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The Presidential Campaign and our Energy Future: Can Reality Replace Rhetoric?By Steve CohenAugust 4, 2008 | 3:59 p.m

Over the past weekend we got

to hear President Bush,

Senator McCain and then

Senator Obama all supporting

drilling for oil off our coasts.

Both Bush and McCain

maintain that the way to

reduce gasoline prices is to

develop more supplies of oil.

They argue, and polling shows people believe, that drilling for more oil will lower

prices. Although Obama is not crazy about drilling in fragile environments, he's

willing to allow some drilling in exchange for a bill that would promote alternative

energy.

For a brief moment I admired the artfulness and subtly of Obama's perspective-a

little carefully controlled drilling can't do much harm, as long as our policy

encourages renewable energy. I've also read those polls that show the American

public buys the argument that more drilling will lower their gasoline prices. It is

obvious that McCain was using Obama's opposition to drilling to show that Obama

was out of touch and not a "regular guy". So, to show he's a regular guy, Obama

supports a little drilling to try to defuse McCain's attack. McCain then shifts his

argument and attacks Obama for changing his position and being a "flip flopper".

It is truly a shame that McCain thinks that the only

way to become President is to hire Bush's political

team and stoop to Bush's strategy of character

assassinating or "swift boating" his opponent. This

year's model is to tag Obama with Britney and

Paris. This is really pathetic. It's too bad that

Obama is responding to all of this with messages

that seem inconsistent with his principles.

Presidential campaigns have become media

products that need candidates to rise and fall in the

polls to create drama, build audience and sell

advertising. Obama goes overseas, plays well and



Drilling off the California coast, whale in foreground





pulls ahead in the polls, only to return to be

attacked by McCain and then fall back into a tie.

Let's all get ready for Obama's convention build

up, VP soap opera and brief post convention bounce, followed by a rapid version of

the same for McCain. Stay tuned for next week's episode of "as the campaign

turns..." This is not a media conspiracy, just the normal dynamic of Presidential

politics.

Fortunately, there is a chance for reality to intervene in this campaign of images

and distortion. There will be live, nationally televised debates, and there is also the

reality of war and peace, global warming and our deteriorating economy. These

realities are more difficult to spin, and perhaps will supplant the back and forth

image dance we seem to be watching today.

This leads to the reality of this gas drilling issue. The problem with the

Bush-McCain argument on supply and demand is that demand is growing. In fact

in China and India it is growing at a far faster pace then even a rapidly growing

supply will be able to handle. Assuming these guys can read the same data I can

read, they must know that drilling for oil will not increase supplies enough to truly

lower prices here in America. It is more of the same shameful pandering and

symbolic "position taking" that is common to our electoral politics.

Obama is trying to demonstrate a statesman-like willingness to compromise, and I

know this will sound naïve, but I think he has missed an opportunity to educate the

American people about the futility of increased oil drilling. Drilling for oil to solve

our energy crisis is a little like building another highway or adding a lane to an

existing highway to ease traffic. At first, the traffic moves more freely and the

congestion problem goes away. Then people start to move out to where the new

road goes and soon there is more traffic than there ever was. The solution to auto

traffic is not better roads because better roads lead to more cars. The solution to

congested roads is alternative or mass transportation.

Similarly, the solution to higher gasoline prices is to stop using gasoline altogether.

Fossil fuels are finite. While they are still relatively plentiful, they are only created

once in the life of this planet. At some point they will become scarce and will

eventually be used up. Things that become scarce eventually go up in price. We

have built our economy around mobility and personal transportation. Now, it

seems that our approach to development is being imitated all over the world,

particularly in Asia. The winner in the world economy is going to be the nation that

builds the first renewable energy industry. Drilling for oil is not going to help us

win that competition.

In the past week, gasoline prices in this region started to head closer to $4 than the

$5 that seemed to be coming. Still, consumers have changed their behavior,

possibly for the foreseeable future. People are driving less and buying smaller cars.

They are abandoning SUVs and the companies that build them are losing money.

This is a moment when we have an opportunity to redefine our energy future. We

know that our current President is not up to the job of redefining our approach to

energy. That challenge will be left to our next President. At the moment, it's not

clear that either of them is capable of providing meaningful leadership in this

critical area.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | ENERGY POLICY | FOSSIL FUELS | GASOLINE PRICES | GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN |JOHN MCCAIN | OFFSHORE DRILLING | PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Toward a Profession of Sustainability Managers: Wayne Balta and Sustainability at IBMBy Steve CohenAugust 8, 2008 | 12:50 p.m

If we are to make this planet more sustainable, all of us--individuals, families,

schools, nonprofits, and especially corporations--will need to change our behavior.

This does not mean that we must live grim lives where we stay at home freezing in

the dark. It does mean that we need to pay attention to the resources we consume

and we need to switch as quickly as we can to renewable resources. This is going to

require changes in public policy and increases in the funding for scientific research

and development. It is also going to require the private sector do more to

incorporate sustainability principles into best management practices. In the period

after the Great Depression we saw the reform of financial markets and the

development of rules governing corporate finance and reporting. Along with that

we saw the rise of the profession of accounting. Despite the attacks of those who

think that free markets require the same governing principles that prevailed in the

Wild West, well-managed modern corporations understand the importance of

financial rules and financial accounting. The profession of accounting is a real one

and it influences the behavior of corporations. Sustainability principles may never

be as codified as accounting rules, but these principles are starting to become

visible in many private corporations. Along with these principles we are starting to

see a new profession rising: a profession of sustainability managers

With this in mind, we spoke to a leader in the private sector who is one of these

new sustainability professionals--Wayne Balta, Vice President of Corporate

Environmental Affairs and Product Safety at IBM. Balta has global responsibility

for environmental leadership at the company.

Founded in 1911, IBM now works in 170 countries

and employs more than 380,000 people. Balta,

who holds a Master of Science Degree in civil

engineering from MIT, began working at IBM in

1984. He's been in his current position since 2001.

According to Balta, IBM has a long history of trying

to "get it right" with the environment. Former CEO Tom Watson Junior issued

IBM's first environmental policy in 1971, long before terms like "environmentally

friendly" became buzz words. In 1974 the company called for energy conservation

when it issued its first energy policy, and IBM has voluntarily published a




More Columns >> corporate environmental report every year since 1990.

Balta says IBM has been proactive about environmental stewardship for two

reasons. First, "Protecting the environment is the right thing to do, and that has

always been consistent with IBM's historical stature as a responsible company."

Second, IBM has long recognized that good environmental management makes

good business sense.

For example, since 1990, when IBM began documenting its carbon dioxide

emissions, the company has saved almost 300 million dollars by conserving over

4.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. They also avoided over 3 million tons of

carbon emissions in the process.

Today, IBM has several environmental initiatives underway. Recently, the

company set up a congestion pricing system (sound familiar?) for Stockholm,

Sweden. The system, which involves 18 points of entry into Stockholm's city center,

charges vehicles based on use of the road and time of day. Balta notes that the

results have been very promising, showing a 25 percent reduction in peak hour

traffic and a 15 percent reduction in carbon emissions, since people are driving

less.

One of the company's latest environmental initiatives came out of a worldwide

"InnovationJam"--basically a massive online brainstorming session--held in the

fall of 2006. The topic, according to Balta, was how IBM could "help the world

innovate in areas where innovation would really matter in the coming decade."

"For one calendar week we invited and encouraged all IBMers, all over the world,

at any time of day, including their family and friends, to get on an IBM web-based

system, and "jam," or collectively talk to each other, submit ideas, blog, post,

whatever you want to call it."

More than 150,000 people from just over 100 countries participated, posting tens

of thousands of ideas. "One of the topics that came up over and over and over was

the environment," says Balta.

In response, IBM launched a new business unit called Big Green Innovations.

"It's all about . . . setting aside a group of IBM technical leaders, researchers, others

with greater business skills, to think about how IBM could apply the skills inside

the company to innovate in areas for the environment," explains Balta.

The unit is looking at a broad range of areas, including water management and

high performance computing to model scenarios for the world under a changing

climate.

It becomes clear when talking to Balta that IBM's environmental accomplishments

come from integrating the ethic of sustainability into the "fabric of the business,"

rather than relegating environmental responsibility to just a staff function.

"[I] don't design computers," Balta says, "but there's a bunch of IBMers who do. . .

and they're the ones who can make decisions to design those computers to be

better for the environment, whether it involves the materials that are used, the

energy that's consumed, or the extent to which it can be used at the end of its

original life. When we integrate it and get those people involved, that's when it

sticks."

One key to this integration is IBM's global Environmental Management System,

which identifies and manages the potential environmental impact of IBM's


operations. In fact, when asked to name one of IBM's top environmental

achievements, Balta says IBM's Environmental Management System is the most

important.

"If you're going to be a leader on the environment," says Balta, "you've got to

identify the way in which you're involved. You've got to measure your impact.

You've got to manage the results of what you found out, and you also need to be

transparent and report it, and . . . make known how well you're doing, or how well

you're not doing."

"All of the eventual [environmental] results that happen, they're really due to the

global environmental management system, because that's the foundation, that's

what sustains our focus, and that's what drives our performance over decades."

As Balta points out, the environment is a long-term issue, with long-term

importance. "It transcends generations, and getting it right really, really matters,"

he says.

If you look at a list of the world's 100 largest economic entities, you'll find

more corporations there than countries (51 versus 49). Simply put, corporations

are big and powerful. Their size means they have a big impact on global issues,

including the environment. It also means they have tremendous resources that can

be rallied to actually do good for the environment. We see this at IBM, we see it

here at Columbia University and we are beginning to see it in many large

organizations. Going green may have started as a public relations gimmick, but as

the price of energy and water continue to rise, it's starting to take root with those

responsible for managing production and facilities.MORE: CARBON EMISSIONS | CONGESTION PRICING | CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY | GREEN | IBM | STEVECOHENS BLOG | WAYNE BALTA


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No Straight Talk from McCain and No Change from Obama as Energy Moves to the Center of the Presidential CampaignBy Steve CohenAugust 11, 2008 | 3:00 p.m

The energy issue has become

central in the presidential

campaign and we see little to

suggest that either candidate

will engage in a real discussion

about the real choices we

have. The fact is that the era of

fossil fuels is coming to an

end. There are too many

people and too much need for energy for this to continue for very long. How long?

More than a decade and less than a century. Why should we care? Because we

probably can think of better things to do with petrochemicals than burning them

for fuels. Because we shouldn’t be handing this problem to our children to solve.

Will this be discussed in a meaningful way by the presidential candidates?

Probably not.

I suppose I should be grateful that at least Senator Obama was able to use this

campaign to give a superb speech in Philadelphia on race. That will be a speech

that will be quoted for many years to come. It demonstrated that the public can

understand a complicated message. Maybe modern presidential campaigns can

only absorb one meaningful statement per campaign. The spectacle of Senator

McCain shouting to drill here and drill now for oil was simply too much to take.

Given his history and past record on the

environment and climate change it is really

shocking to hear McCain sink to this level.

Both candidates are reading polls and certainly the

rapid rise in gasoline prices has had a deep impact

on the electorate. But why do these campaigns

keep assuming the public is incapable of learning

and absorbing the truth? Yes, people are angry

about high gasoline prices and the oil industry’s tax

breaks and extraordinary profits. But policies like

Obama’s "emergency energy rebate" (from





More Columns >> Toward a Clean Energy Future





“windfall” profits) and McCain’s gas tax

suspension are bad public policy. They encourage

people to use more gasoline. I know that the

political problem in this campaign is the high cost

of gasoline, but the real problem is that we use too

much in the first place. This is the moment to

educate the public on the need to develop alternative sources of energy. Instead,

we get this descending spiral of nonsense piled on top of nonsense.

The modern media does not seem capable of communicating nuanced facts.

Everything must make it into sound bites that can be repeated in the endless loop

of 24/7 TV news. Like a pop song with a hook, the news now has its own top 40 of

snappy phrases that raise our emotional temper without really telling us anything.

While local and state political campaigns have shown some ability to break away

from these limits, national campaigns seem to turn on images like John Kerry

windsurfing and Mike Dukakis sticking his head out of a tank. Obama should be

happy he’s able to sink an outside shot—that image rather than one of him

engaging in the issues may very well give him the election.

It is of course the academic in me which insists on seeing national political

campaigns as great opportunities to teach. I know that presidential campaigns do

not allow the candidates the luxury of educating the public. They need to be

presidents before they can do that. Of course, once they get elected the first time,

they start their campaigns to get re-elected.

The energy issue is the most profound issue that we have faced in a very long time.

Our economy, environmental quality and national security depend on our ability to

solve this problem. We have made little progress in addressing these issues since

the late 1970’s when everyone laughed at Jimmy Carter in his cardigan declaring

the energy crisis to be the moral equivalent of war. Unfortunately, the current

administration decided to fight a shooting war over energy supplies rather than its

“moral equivalent”, but Iraq is an indication of the futility and foolishness of wars

for resources.

Carter was right, we need a national mobilization to address our energy crisis.

People need to understand the facts about energy, climate change and the absolute

centrality of the need for renewable energy. It may be a difficult and complicated

case to articulate in a presidential campaign, but we really need both McCain and

Obama to try to help the American people learn this issue. Both of these candidates

emerged from the primaries because they offered the American public the promise

of a different sort of politics. Obama offered change and McCain offered straight

talk. Now, it seems as if the only change is the end of straight talk.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CLIMATE CHANGE | ENERGY POLICY | FOSSIL FUELS | GASOLINE PRICES | GEORGEW. BUSH | GREEN | JIMMY CARTER | JOHN MCCAIN | PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN | STEVE COHENS BLOG |WINDFALL TAXES

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Breathing in Beijing: Environmental Qualityand the 2008 Summer OlympicsBy Steve CohenAugust 14, 2008 | 10:26 a.m.

Watching the wonderful

spectacle of the Olympics this

year, one finds the world

outside the sports arenas

constantly intruding. Russia

manages to invade Georgia,

human rights activists try to

communicate their message to

the world and oh yeah,

breathing in Beijing remains a

challenge. All of these issues

are important, but as you might expect, I'm going to focus on breathing today.

I have the honor of participating in a program at Columbia's School of

International and Public Affairs where we provide management training for senior

government officials from Guangdong Province in China. Guangdong is an

industrial province with about 80 million residents and a large number of guest

workers, and is at the heart of China's massive effort to develop economically.

During a recent discussion with my class, one of the students made the point that

all nations that have developed an industrial base go through a period of intense

pollution followed by the generation of sufficient wealth that permits a move to a

cleaner style of development. This is of course true, although some argue that the

United States, Europe and Japan simply exported

their dirty industry to the developing world.

It seems to be the case that intense pollution is

typical during the early stages of economic

development. In the United States the air and

water in many of our cities in the 1950's and 1960's

was far worse than it is today. But this is the 21st

century, and I think we are also starting to understand that in the long run you

can't trade off environmental quality for economic growth. Long term growth

requires that we sustain the quality of our environment. The people running the

Olympic games know that without breathable air, the games could not take place.

Billions of dollars of investment would have gone down the drain.





More Columns >> In the case of China, the problem of pollution from economic development is one

of scale. The pace and extent of China's rapid development is unprecedented. The

pollution loads are also unique. Since the 1980's the United States has spent

hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up the mistakes of the mid-twentieth

century and to try to prevent those mistakes in the future. The bill we are paying

now in the United States will eventually come due in China as well. However in

China the bill may end up being much higher-- and some of the damage will be

irreversible.

This leads to the issue of China's environmental quality: In July, thousands of

Chinese worked to clear algae from the Yellow Sea for the sailing races.

Although Chinese officials said the algal bloom was caused by rainfall and warmer

waters, the sea is contaminated with untreated sewage and agricultural and

industrial runoff. Air quality has been a visible and embarrassing issue, with at

least one athlete skipping the Olympics out of fear of harm. At the start of the

games, four United States cyclists apologized after arriving at the airport

with masks on. Someone must have mentioned that they had inadvertently

insulted their hosts. So much for international diplomacy....

In anticipation of the Olympics, the Chinese government invested over $20 billion

to improve environmental quality in Beijing, and over the past year, officials

reported that the air has been either "fair" or "good" 70 percent of the time. After

watching the opening ceremonies it is easy to see how important this event is to

China's government and its people. This is a national celebration of unprecedented

proportions. As visible air pollution persisted in the weeks before the Olympics,

China took additional measures to improve the air. Cars were only allowed

on the road every other day, based on an even-odd license plate rule, and the city

halted construction and temporarily closed factories. Air quality has improved, and

the head of the International Olympic Committee has said that China has done

"everything that is feasible and humanly possible to address this situation", that,

"What they have done is extraordinary," and that there is "absolutely no danger" to

the health of athletes participating in events shorter than one hour. Endurance

events might be postponed if pollution is bad.

As a New Yorker, I wondered how our air compares to the air that our Olympic

athletes are breathing in China. The air here is better than it once was, but still far

from perfect. In New York City, from April 19th to August 1st of this year, New

York City had 16 non-attainment days for ozone (roughly 15%). As of June 2nd,

parts of New York City had persistently exceeded the national ambient air

quality standards for particulates (PM2.5), ozone, and even, at least in some

places, larger piece of soot known as particulate matter 10.

While the Chinese government believed that Beijing's air quality would be above

World Health Organization standards during the Olympics, the day before the

games, the British Broadcasting Company reported that particulate matter

10 registered at "191 micrograms per cubic metre. This far exceeds the World

Health Organization target of 50 micrograms/cubic metre, and also exceeds the

target for developing countries of 150 micrograms/cubic metre."

While assessing the presence of large particulates may not be the best way to

compare the air in both cities, we do have data on the soot in both cities and can

compare the two. Particulate matter size 10 (measured in micrograms per cubic

meter) was recorded in New York City and Beijing on the first few days of the 2008

Olympics: On Friday, August 8: Beijing was 156 with New York City at 11.8;


Saturday, August 9, Beijing was 110, New York, 12.1, Sunday August 10, Beijing

was 278 and New York City, 19.0. You get the idea: The World Health Organization

standard for these particulates is 50-New York always met the standard, Beijing

never did.

It is clear that the organizers of this year's Summer Olympic Games understood

that the success of Beijing's games was closely connected to the quality of the local

environment. Cities around the world are learning that in addition to great

restaurants, exciting night life and meaningful cultural opportunities, both

residents and visitors expect cities to provide the air needed to breath.



MORE: AIR QUALITY | BEIJING | CHINA | ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | GREEN | OLYMPICS | POLLUTION | STEVECOHENS BLOG


http://www.observer.com/2008/green/promoting-energy-efficiency-comparing-new-york-state-california-0


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Promoting Energy Efficiency: Comparing New York State to CaliforniaBy Steve CohenSeptember 17, 2008 | 10:32 a.m.

One of the simplest things we

can do to improve our

productivity and economic

well being is to increase the

efficiency of our use of energy.

We are so wasteful that there

is an enormous amount of low

hanging fruit. As New York

state begins to get serious

about this, we should look

west to California, for a place that really knows how to make the most out of a

kilowatt.

Since 1981, I've taught public management at Columbia, and I am not one of those

people who believe that government is incompetent and only the private sector is

efficient and effective. Some work is best performed by government, some by

nonprofits and some by the private sector. On energy efficiency I think that

California has gotten this mix right, and in New York I am worried that we rely too

much on government.

California's Energy Efficiency Program

California's program began in 1996 and required

the three major private utilities to collect $540

million in fees annually to promote "public

purpose" programs, with $220 million set aside

specifically for energy efficiency. In 2002,

Californians began to pay another, smaller

surcharge to promote renewable energy. The

renewable energy fee generates $135 million per year. The other goals of

California's energy efficiency program are to improve the efficiency of appliances

sold in California and to increase efficiency standards for buildings.

California's 2000-01 energy crisis led to four major blackouts and caused a supply

and demand imbalance. That drove the state government to create an Energy


+EnlargeEnergy Information Administration



More Columns >> Action Plan designed to reduce the load on the state's electricity grid and prevent

excessive price spikes.

California is also moving on renewable energy. The state leads the nation in

electricity generation from non-hydroelectric renewable energy sources - solar,

wind and biomass. In 2006 it set a goal of increasing the portion of electricity

derived from renewable resources to 33 percent by 2020. Currently 11 percent of

the state's electricity comes from renewable energy sources. (See map above)

In September 2005, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) authorized

$2 billion in energy efficiency funding for 2006-08, the most ambitious energy

efficiency and conservation campaign in the history of the utility industry in the

United States. According to the California Energy Commission, "California's

building and appliance standards have saved consumers more than $56 billion in

electricity and natural gas costs since 1978 and averted building 15 large power

plants. It is estimated the current standards will save an additional $23 billion by

2013."

California is the most energy efficient state in the United States. While per capita

electricity consumption in the United States increased by nearly 50 percent over

the past 30 years, California's per capita electricity use remained almost flat, due in

large part to cost-effective building and appliance efficiency standards and other

energy efficiency programs, according to the CPUC.

Comparing California's Energy Efficiency to New York's

According to the Energy Information Administration, California's per capita

electricity consumption in 2006 was 7,185kWh per person, while New York

consumed 7,369.8kWh per person. So both states are below the national average of

around 12,000.

Of course these data actually understate how inefficient New York state is, since

New York City has the highest energy efficiency of any major city in the United

States with only 4,473kWh per capita consumption. Without New York City's high

level of energy efficiency, New York state would rank up there with Texas for

energy inefficiency.

Instead of growing a government agency to work on energy efficiency with the

private sector, the funds collected for energy efficiency in California are allocated

to the state's private electric utilities. However, the money can only be spent by the

utilities on energy efficiency projects. Since utilities are in the business of

generating and distributing energy and not saving it, most of the energy efficiency

work in California has been outsourced to companies that specialize in that type of

work. In fact, California's market for energy efficiency has given rise to around 40

businesses that focus exclusively on building and enhancing energy efficiency.

Intergy, a "resource conservation firm", is one example. Ben Bradford, a senior

program manager at the company, estimates the California energy market at

around $4 billion for energy efficiency programs, with $1 billion going to third

parties, such as Intergy. He believes New York has roughly the same potential, but

until now it has not been adequately tapped.


Intergy was established in 2003. Of the energy efficiency companies operating in

California, only about 15 are as broad as Intergy, which has recently expanded its

operations to New York. It is currently developing a "research and demonstration"

project with the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority

(NYSERDA) that focuses on improving data centers in downtown Manhattan.

Intergy is also about to start working with Mt Sinai Hospital to improve its energy

efficiency.

New York State’s Energy Efficiency Program

Which brings us to New York state, and the impact of New York style politics on

energy efficiency programs. As of October 2008, New York will devote $347

million each year to energy efficiency programs, mostly administered by

NYSERDA. Both New York’s and California’s energy efficiency programs have been

in effect since 1996, but New York’s funding increases have been modest when

compared to California’s. Our increased funding from $175 to $347 million this

year is still dwarfed by the $1 billion currently spent each year in California.

New York's public benefit program started with funding from the System Benefits

Charge (SBC). This three-year, $234.3 million program, administered by the New

York Public Service Commission, was put in place to harness funds that could be

put toward programs designed to achieve peak load reductions. The System

Benefits Charge funded initiatives were focused on:

Energy efficiency = $162 million

Research and development in energy-related areas,

particularly in

renewable resources, environmental monitoring and

protection, and combined heat and power = $41

million

Energy affordability for low-income utility customers

= $29 million

An additional $3 million was allocated to environmental disclosure activities

Since 2001 all of the money collected under the System Benefits Charge has gone

to NYSERDA for the administration of Energy $mart, a program designed “to

promote competitive markets for energy efficiency services, and to provide direct

benefits to electricity ratepayers and/or be of clear economic benefit to the people

of New York.” The System Benefits Charge generated $150 million a year from

2001-2006 and was increased to $175 million per year from 2006-2008.

Funding allocations will change in October, when the Public Service Commission

increases its annual System Benefits Charge revenue collections from $175 million

to $347 million. NYSERDA will receive most of the new funding – $260 million,

$85 million of which will go to a group of fast-track programs. The remainder of

the funds – $87 million – will go to the public utilities, which have been granted a

60-day filing period during which they can submit proposals for up to two energy

efficiency programs.

So far. about 2,700 projects in more than 40 individual programs have been


funded by the System Benefits Charge and made available through the Energy

$mart program.

Other benefits accrued over Energy $mart’s five-year operation include:

Approximately $198 million in annual energy savings

4,200 jobs retained or created

A leverage of $2.50 in private investment for every

New York Energy $mart Program dollar spent

1,400 GWh saved per year

860 MW in reduced demand

Annual carbon dioxide reduction equivalent to

200,000 fewer cars

Several of the state’s electric utilities, including Central Hudson and Con

Edison/Orange & Rockland, have protested against the large allocations in System

Benefits Charge funds going to NYSERDA. According to a Public Service

Commission-issued assessment, Central Hudson argued that it is “not reasonable”

to provide large increases in ratepayer funding to what it termed, “the incumbent

governmental monopoly energy efficiency supplier…”

A Better Mix of Public and Private Sector Actions Might Work Better

Here’s my take on this, and I apologize for the detail I needed to review before

getting to this. The people that work at NYSERDA are doing a good job of

promoting energy efficiency, but the design and size of New York’s program is

inadequate. I know that it is difficult to compare these two states, their economies

and the age of their infrastructure are quite different. However, by directly funding

utilities, California has generated a large, entrepreneurial energy efficiency

business. Government can focus on setting policy and evaluating the performance

of energy efficiency projects. In California, the government doesn’t need to manage

the energy efficiency experiments. In New York, a government authority,

NYSERDA, funds and manages the effort to make energy more efficient.

NYSERDA does a good job, but the system in California works better.

California has demonstrated that a utility driven, private sector model can work.

Utilities are pushed by their regulators to spend these funds and have no incentive

to develop elaborate bureaucracies to spend this money. The companies that are

providing energy efficiency services are growing and building their expertise and

unlike many service businesses have a steady and secure revenue stream to

compete for.

In the short run, New York should copy California and increase our surcharges,

devote some to renewables and allocate funds to carefully regulated electric

utilities rather than a government authority. As energy becomes a larger cost for

families and businesses, energy efficiency will be a key determinant of a state’s

economic competitiveness. Unless we change, California will win these

competitions and New York will lose.

I am grateful for the extensive research for this piece provided by Sara

Schonhardt, 2009 Master's candidate, School of International and Public Affairs,

http://www.observer.com/2008/green/sustainability-economy-and-presidential-race


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Sustainability, the Economy and the Presidential RaceBy Steve CohenAugust 19, 2008 | 11:35 a.m.

The Presidential nominating conventions are now approaching, first the

Democrats' and then the Republicans'. The President hangs out at the Olympics,

stomps his feet over the Russian invasion of Georgia and then makes another pass

at gutting the Endangered Species Act by reducing the time and scientific analysis

needed to assess the environmental impact of federal projects. The energy and

climate issue have provided some environmental content to this campaign, but the

folks running the country still don't see the stake we have in environmental

sustainability.

What does an extinct frog have to do with human well-being? What does the

environment have to do with economic wealth? Can't our technology solve any

environmental problem we make? The short answer, as we learned nearly half a

century ago from Rachael Carson and Barry Commoner, is that everything is

connected to everything else. We live on a finite planet that provides us with the

air, water and food we need in order to live. We do not have the technology to leave

the planet or overcome its constraints.

Economic development and the creation of wealth cannot be pursued without

factoring in environmental quality and the preservation of natural resources. If we

pollute our water, we can clean it up with enough energy, but we do not have the

technology for low-cost, limitless energy and so when we fowl up the water and

must clean it up, we spend money we could be using on something else. Half of

New York City's water can avoid expensive filtration because ecosystems filter the

water free of charge. A well-managed environment

generates wealth; a poorly managed environment

costs us wealth.

The political dialogue in the United States is slowly

starting to reflect the reality of sustainable

development. If your wealth is based on a finite

resource that you use up, when the resource is

gone, so is your wealth. The trick is to use the time

you have when exploiting the finite resource to

make the transition to renewable resources. That is

the central economic challenge of the 21st century.

Here in 2008, we see local government officials






like Michael Bloomberg in New York City, Andy

Spano up in Westchester and of course Arnold

Schwarzenegger in California who seem to get it.

Environmental quality is not the opposite of economic well being, it is integral to it.

In a study of local level sustainability efforts across the United States last spring,

students at Columbia University's MPA Program in Environmental

Science and Policy studied 14 governments of small jurisdictions (1,000,000

people or less) and analyzed a new trend to develop comprehensive local

sustainability plans.

These local officials understand the connection between economic development

and environmental sustainability. Why is it so difficult to make this case to the

national media and our national leadership? This has been an era characterized by

the promise of easy everything. Wars financed without new tax revenues and

soldiered without a draft. Infrastructure allowed to crumble so that taxes could be

cut. Riches made on imaginative packaging of debt "products" backed by

imaginary equity in an over-inflated housing market. For a decade many of us were

trying to figure out who could really afford those multi-million dollar apartments

going up around the corner. The answer seems to be nobody. The gasoline price

shock of the past six months, the housing market meltdown, the resurgence of

inflation (producer prices jumped 1.2% in July) are indicators that the bill for this

early 21st century boom is coming due.

We need to ask ourselves, what is the basis for real economic growth and wealth?

Work and production based on creativity and invention financed by capital

accumulated through savings: That was the fundamental formula that grew the

U.S. economy. We need to add to that traditional formula a new concern for

sustainability. Our wealth must be renewable- not based on a set of finite natural

resources.

Which brings us back to Presidential politics. Sacrifice sounds good in public

pronouncements but polls poorly when spelled out in detail. No one is going to get

elected by promising to increase taxes in order to invest in research to develop

renewable energy. Yet, only by deferring a little gratification and investing in our

future can we maintain the wealth we now enjoy.

Instead, we will see Nancy Pelosi start to talk about drilling for oil off the

continental shelf, and a lame duck President working overtime to dismantle as

many environmental rules as he can between mid-November and mid-January.

We will hear a few phrases at the two conventions aimed at shoring up the

environmental credentials of the two candidates. They won't mean much because

there will be little reality behind the rhetoric. The hope, as it often has been in the

American experiment is that community, private, local and state initiatives will

push the national government into action. It would be better if it came more

rapidly from a well-led national government. Let's see if we manage to get one.

MORE: ANDY SPANO | ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER | BARACK OBAMA | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | ECONOMY |ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY | GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN | NANCY PELOSI | PRESIDENTIALNOMINATING CONVENTIONS | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Did Obama Really Give Away the Store?

Bill and Vladimir

Stop the Presses: Republican Lawmakers Oppose Democratic President

Obama Swears In, But is it Good For New York?

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Bringing Green Principles Into the

Local versus National Solutions to theEnergy Crisis: NYC’s Renewable EnergyPolicyBy Steve CohenAugust 25, 2008 | 11:04 a.m.

Last week Mayor Michael

Bloomberg proposed that New

York City engage in a serious

effort to develop alternative

energy sources, and in return

for his trouble he faced

skepticism and even ridicule

from a cynical media.

Cartoons were drawn with

King Kong trying to swat a windmill off the top of the Empire State Building. Still,

even the tabloids could not dismiss the idea entirely. Bloomberg commands

respect, and $4 a gallon gasoline has everyone looking for alternatives.

New York City has been built by people who dreamed large and were able to

project into the future. Imagine the city without Central, Van Cortland or Prospect

Parks. Could downtown have been possible without a subway system? How crazy

was it to get the city’s water from a hundred miles upstate? Many of the city’s great

institutions from the Public Library to my own university have benefited from

forward looking leadership. With PlanNYC 2030 and this latest proposal on

alternative energy, the Mayor must be given enormous credit for adding his voice

to the chorus of visionaries that built this place.

The Mayor invited proposals from private organizations to develop wind, solar and

water current energy projects. New York City has

lots of buildings, water front and land that could be

used for pilot projects—some of which could

succeed and generate meaningful amounts of

electricity. Bloomberg is taking the opportunity to

place renewable energy on the political agenda. In

contrast, our federal officials are reading polls that

show that 70% of the public wants to drill for oil in

fragile environments and everyone starts looking

for photo ops on oil rigs.

Other than “drill, drill, and drill”, Senator McCain’s





More Columns >> American Economy



new favorite solution to the energy crisis is to build

more nuclear power plants and build them fast. I

do not share the deep fear that some have of

nuclear technology, and accept the argument that plants can be made as safe as

other technology we use every day. However, my argument against nuclear is that

it is complicated to manage, centralized, capital intensive, produces waste we

cannot detoxify and impossible to site given the U.S. federal political system. I

think it’s a technology we should skip, and instead develop something that is more

practical and waste free. As Mayor Bloomberg indicates, direct solar, wind, river

currents and tides are all available in this coastal city.

The size and influence of the federal government dwarfs all other American

institutions and so we look to Washington for leadership and the impact that only

the feds can achieve. Unfortunately, the last two decades have seen little but

gridlock out of the District of Columbia. Neither Bush I, Clinton, nor Bush II were

able to do much to come to grips with our critical issues. The current President

Bush’s initiatives were nearly all misguided. For that reason we’ve looked to state

and local governments for creativity and solutions. Maybe that’s the right place to

focus our attention anyway. The public policy problems we face these days require

lots of learning to solve. How do we improve High School graduation rates? End

homelessness? End hunger? Ensure housing? Develop carbon free energy?

Maintain clean water? Maybe these problems are best solved at the community

and local level- where it’s easier to see and learn from our mistakes. The scale of

the federal government is seductive, but maybe we should only turn to Washington

when we’ve already figured out what needs to be done.

On the other hand, it's probably a bad idea to give up on the federal government.

It's true that when you compare Mike Bloomberg to George Bush you want to focus

your attention on City Hall rather than the White House. Still, if we look back, just

like New York City, this has nation has long been a creative and forward looking

force in the world. It built an agricultural science that fed the world, developed a

transcontinental railroad, landed men on the moon, created world-leading basic

and health sciences, defeated totalitarianism, cleaned its air and water and built a

working class into the middle class. Not bad for one country. It’s just that lately we

don’t seem capable of accomplishing much of anything. This is a critical moment

for the United States. We surely need better quality leadership in our national

government, but we are fortunate to have a political structure that allows state and

local governments to build creative programs without the approval of Washington.

Mike Bloomberg has once again provided creative, forward looking leadership. He

deserves our support and our gratitude. He has mine.

MORE: BILL CLINTON | ENERGY POLICY | GEORGE BUSH SENIOR | GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN |MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | OFFSHORE DRILLING | RENEWABLE ENERGY | SOLAR ENERGY | STEVE COHENS BLOG| WATER ENERGY | WIND ENERGY

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Science, Governor Palin and Environmental PolicyBy Steve CohenAugust 30, 2008 | 3:30 p.m

On January 5th of this year,

Alaska Governor and Vice

Presidential candidate Sarah

Palin wrote an op-ed in the

New York Times opposing

listing polar bears on the

endangered species list. Her

argument was well reasoned

and thoughtful, although in

the end, unsatisfactory. In

her piece Governor Palin noted her support for policies that helped preserve

polar bears:

"We have a ban on most hunting - only Alaska Native subsistence

families can hunt polar bears - and measures to protect denning areas

and prevent harassment of the bears. We are also participating in

international efforts aimed at preserving polar bear populations

worldwide."

In that op-ed Palin observed that:

"...polar bears are magnificent animals... They are worthy of our

utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding

polar bears to the nation's list of endangered species, as some are now

proposing, should not be part of those efforts."

Her argument against listing the polar bears is that the threat to them is not based

on evidence of proven threat, but a projection of threat based on models of the

impact of climate change on habitats. The governor makes clear that she does not

oppose the Endangered Species Act:

"We're not against protecting plants and animals under the

Endangered Species Act. Alaska has supported listings of other

species, like the Aleutian Canada goose. The law worked as it should -

under its protection the population of the geese rebounded so much

that they were taken off the list of endangered and threatened species





More Columns >> in 2001.

Listing the goose - then taking it off - was based on science. The

possible listing of a healthy species like the polar bear would be

based on uncertain modeling of possible effects. This is simply

not justified."

(Emphasis is mine)

For me, the most distressing part of the op-ed is its attempt to contrast "science" to

"modeling". There are a number of methods used by scientists to add to our

understanding of our world and our environment. Sometimes we study samples

and extrapolate to an entire population. Sometimes we can study a discrete

phenomenon in a laboratory and observe it with equipment that allows us to view

details and relationships invisible to the naked eye. Sometimes we study a

complicated set of relationships by developing mathematical models that allow us

to simulate probable future effects of facts we can now observe. These models are

just as "scientific" as the other methods used to understand our world. To make

policy on a scientific phenomenon like species extinction we must by definition

rely on some form of modeling. If we don't project extinction, then by the time we

move to protect a species it is already gone.

The question for policy makers is what type of risk we are willing to allow and what

type of information convinces us that extinction is a real risk. Governor Palin

believes that accepting projections of species impact based on climate change

opens up the possibility that the Endangered Species Act would be used to regulate

carbon dioxide emissions. To her, this would be an overly broad interpretation of

the Endangered Species Act.

Fair enough, she makes a good point. A better policy approach would be to leave

that type of regulation to a new law specifically designed to regulate carbon

dioxide. However, we all need to pay close attention to politicians who make a

distinction between "science" and "modeling". As Palin correctly notes, scientists

should present their analyses to elected leaders who conduct an open discussion

about the policy approach needed to address the issues raised by their studies.

However, if elected leaders are going to make policy based on scientific

information, they need to develop at least a modest level of scientific literacy

themselves.

Excellent science requires an understanding of probability and the reasoned use of

extrapolation. The polls that politicians read are based on these same techniques.

Just like some elections are too close to call based on the polls, some models

generate results that are too uncertain to be used for policy making. However, just

like the exit polls that show a landslide--sometimes the model is so predictive that

it can and should inform policymaking. Effective policy in our complex world

requires modeling projected impacts. Modeling is an essential method of scientific

inquiry. It is science.

MORE: ALASKA | CARBON DIOXIDE | ENDANGERED SPECIES | GREEN | SARAH PALIN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Drill, Drill, Drill: John Mc Cain’s LostOpportunity to Provide Leadership onEnergyBy Steve CohenSeptember 8, 2008 | 10:18 a.m.

In speaking about his support

for the military "surge" in

Iraq, John Mc Cain said that

he would rather lose the

Presidency than lose the war.

It's too bad he hasn't followed

the same principled approach

on energy. The New York

Times lead editorial this past

Sunday reiterated a point I have made a number of times on this site. We cannot

drill enough oil and gas to solve our energy crisis. There are too many people on

this planet and we use more and more fuel every day. John McCain has missed an

historic opportunity to develop an American consensus about renewable energy,

instead taking on the expedient, poll-driven mantra of "drill, drill, drill: here and

now". What a disappointing and shameful exercise.

After September 11, the American people demonstrated that following a graphic

shock, like the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they could

understand the subtle and insidious threat of terrorism. Here in New York City,

our always stressed municipal budget has found room to hire 1000 staff in the

NYPD to work on this critical issue. The American people are capable of great

insight when their leaders choose to lead. On energy, McCain knows better, but

has abdicated the leadership role he once played

on this issue.

Given how much oil we have here and abroad, it's

hard for people to understand how we can run out.

The Times editorial, mentioning all of the

advertising on energy they saw at the Republican

Convention observed that: "... one advertisement,

from Chevron, seemed strikingly on point. "It took

us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil," it

said. "We'll use the next trillion in 30." This nicely

framed a big part of the energy challenge." There





More Columns >> Toward a Clean Energy Future





are a number of ways to express the data about our

use of fossil fuels, but even if we didn't have to deal

with the issue of climate change, we absolutely

need to get off of our addiction to fossil fuels. This

is not something that needs to be completed next

week, but it is something we need to start

immediately.

The continued use of fossil fuels threatens our security, our economy and our

environment:

It threatens our security because it requires that we

pay tribute to our enemies to keep our cars moving.

No matter how much domestic oil we produce, we

will need more to run this place.

It threatens our economy because an increasing

portion of our wealth and productivity will go into

paying the cost of energy. Increased competition

from India and China for oil and natural gas will

continue to drive the price of fossil fuels higher and

higher.

It threatens our environment because burning fossil

fuels adds carbon dioxide and a range of more

prosaic pollutants to the atmosphere.

According to his campaign web site, Senator McCain's campaign "Lexington

Project", promotes energy independence, and is an "all of the above strategy" for

reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Despite the plan's attempt to promote

sustainable energy, it's first element is increased domestic oil and gas

production and another key element is to ensure that 45 new nuclear power plants

were "on track for construction" by 2030. McCain must realize that the odds of

getting local communities to accept new nuclear power plants is zero. While there

is an effort to promote balance on his web site, McCain's emphasis on the political

stump has been "drill, drill. drill"

It's not hard to understand what's going on here. With the McCain campaign now

fully in the hands of former George Bush and Karl Rove campaign associate, Steve

Schmidt, McCain is being transformed into the type of Republican Presidential

candidate we've gotten used to over the past decade. Jim Rutenberg and Adam

Nagourney detailed these changes in a September 7 piece in the International

Herald Tribune. According to their excellent article, McCain's new tougher

approach was approved by Karl Rove himself who observed that: "Since the

elevation of Schmidt and his new responsibilities, he's given the campaign a new

focus and energy and drive that's been very impressive," ...They've had a much

better July and August than April and May." Rutenberg and Nagourney report that

"the new tone has been jarring to some veterans of McCain's presidential run in


2000 who worry that the campaign exudes a cynicism that undercuts the senator's

old reputation for "straight talk" and a more elevated style of politicking. On a

number of occasions, McCain's campaign advertisements have been described by

campaign watchdog organizations as false or misleading, particularly those

attacking Obama on tax votes.

I believe that this approach will backfire in the end. One of the reasons that

Senators and Obama and Mc Cain won during the primary season was that they

promised a politics that might not decend to the ritualistic exchange of rhetorical

fire we've become so accustomed to. On energy and environment, McCain once

represented a singular voice of sanity in a political party that seemed determined

to ignore scientific fact. That is long gone now. And with it fades the hope of a civil,

reasoned exchange of views during the fall political campaign. Oh well.

MORE: GREEN | JOHN MCCAIN | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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After Hurricane Ike: How do we Reduce the Impact of Natural Disasters?By Steve CohenSeptember 14, 2008 | 2:51 p.m

At the end of June, when parts

of Iowa were underwater, I

wrote that the United States

needed to develop a rainy day

fund and do more to routinize

emergency response and

reconstruction. In that piece I

mentioned that, according to

the National

Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: "The U.S. has sustained

78 weather-related disasters over the past 28 years in which overall damages/costs

reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total normalized losses for the 78 events

exceed $600 billion."

Now, we are all horrified by the impact of Hurricane Ike on the Gulf Coast and on

Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city. The financial impact of this latest

disaster is still being calculated, and even though the impact was not as great as it

could have been or as devastating as some predicted, the financial cost will be

huge. The loss in human lives and in quality of life will also be substantial. Once

again, I advocate developing a more realistic and routine process for dealing with

these events and their aftermath. It’s nice that our president and presidential

candidates offer the Gulf Coast victims their prayers and good wishes. It would be

nicer if they could offer them some cash and a

federal system of response and reconstruction that

is reliable and predictable.

In addition to reconstruction, it may be time to

take another look at our 20th century industrial

age infrastructure. This certainly includes

electricity but it might also be a good idea to take another look at the way we assure

water supply, waste water treatment, solid waste disposal and transportation here

in the United States. We have created large, centralized and quite vulnerable

systems to provide us with these essentials. We build systems this way because

20th century technologies benefited from economies of scale.





More Columns >> In New York City we once proposed building five waste-to-energy incinerators, one

for each borough. In the end, none were built. No one wanted to have the entire

borough’s garbage next door. Perhaps instead of building large centralized waste

facilities we should build a larger number of smaller facilities. With modern

communications and the ever lower cost of computer controls and information, we

might be able to build one plant in every community board district, and control all

59 facilities from 4 or 5 small (and redundant) control rooms.

Perhaps some part of each household’s electric supply could be provided off of the

power grid with renewable energy sources. Today, solar cells are huge roof top

operations that are heavy, expensive to install and not too efficient. The batteries

that store this energy are also pretty primitive. But what if some day a solar cell

was the size of a cell phone and you could glue it on your window? What if the

batteries could hold electricity long enough to last through the evening and a few

gray days? I know… it’s hard to imagine.

Still, I remember in 1970 when I packed up my stereo to go to college, most of the

car’s trunk was taken up by the speakers and three heavy boxes of records. Last

month when my eldest daughter packed the car’s trunk for college her iPod and

laptop took up almost no space, and easily replaced the stereo, records, typewriter

and TV that I took to school back in the prehistoric era. You get the picture:

technology could have an unimaginable impact on how we live.

As the planet has gotten more crowded, more of us have settled in places that are

vulnerable to natural disasters. I don’t think this trend is going to be reversed.

Moreover, our lifestyles depend on electricity, transport, food, waste disposal and

water that is sold to us by large centralized public and private organizations. The

proportion of people who grow their own food, use well water, septic systems and

compost their own garbage is lower every year. This means that we are increasingly

vulnerable to disasters like Katrina or Ike.

It’s time to start working on ways to reduce our vulnerability. Some of the answer

is better emergency response and more reliable reconstruction. But an important

part of the answer is to develop and implement technologies that allow our urban

population to use less centralized infrastructure. There are, of course, powerful

economic interests that will oppose this idea. That’s because they own and operate

the centralized and vulnerable infrastructure that we rely on. My hope is that the

companies that develop these less centralized technologies will succeed in selling

them to the public. Just as laptops replaced mainframe computers, and Apple

iPods replaced the SONY Walkman, someday, small household renewable

electricity generators might replace the power grid.

But of course, only a fool predicts the future.

MORE: EMERGENCY RESPONSE | GREEN | INFRASTRUCTURE | NATURAL DISASTER | RECONSTRUCTION |STEVE COHENS BLOG | WASTE

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Term Limits, Democracy and SustainabilityBy Steve CohenOctober 3, 2008 | 6:39 p.m

New York City Mayor Michael

Bloomberg’s recent

announcement that he would

seek a third term as mayor

brings back the issue of term

limits and its connection to

good government and

long-term planning. I am

against term limits anywhere,

including the American

presidency. The 22nd

amendment was an

anti-democratic,

anti-government mistake, just

as the term limit mandate in

New York is a bad idea. The argument against term limits is simple and has two

parts:

1) People should be able to vote for anyone they want (this is a concept known as

democracy).

2) Term limits extend an elected official’s “lame duck” period from about a year to

four. The minute the second term starts, the clock (like the one in Mayor

Bloomberg’s bullpen) starts counting down to zero.

By toying with running for higher office,

maintaining his status as one of wealthiest people

in the world, and continuing to improve his already

considerable political and analytic skills, Mayor

Bloomberg has managed to avoid the aura of

powerlessness that accompanies lame-duck status.

In contrast, the lame duck Bush presidency is

losing authority and credibility by the hour. It’s a

small miracle that the Wall Street bailout bill

finally got through the House of Representatives.

Term limits should be imposed by voters at the

ballot box. The idea behind the limits is that the

voters can’t be trusted to vote the rascals out of





More Columns >> Understanding Public Opinion About the Environment office when they need to be thrown out. Term

limits do have a positive side – they force new

people into the political process and make sure that elected officials never get too

comfortable in their positions. Unfortunately, term limits also help ensure that

elected officials never get too experienced or expert in their work.

In the case of Mike Bloomberg, the best argument for a third term is that it gives

him more time to complete long-term projects and institutionalize the long-term

approach he and his team brought to the city in PLANYC 2030. Another term in

office provides him with the opportunity to fully institutionalize some of the

important agenda items his administration introduced in that path-breaking

sustainability plan. The issues of sustainability are not easily addressed within the

time frame of election cycles. Think of the city’s third water tunnel project: This

60-mile long tunnel was first planned in 1954, begun in 1970 and will finally be

completed in 2020 at an estimated cost of $6 billion. Eight years in office is a

pretty short term when you compare it to that time frame.

The argument that we need Mayor Mike because no one else can get us through the

city’s current financial crisis is ridiculous and reminds me of Rudy Giuliani’s rant

after September 11, 2001, when he begged for a three-month extension of his term.

The argument for re-electing Bloomberg is that he has been an excellent mayor

and we value his accomplishments and experience. I certainly do.

Of course, no elected official is indispensible. Michael Bloomberg is a superb

manager with an excellent command of financial issues and data. He may very well

be the best mayor New York City could elect in 2009. But there are a lot of talented

people in this city who could do an excellent job at the helm.

As for an argument against a third term for the mayor: look to the third-term

performance of mayors LaGuardia, Wagner and Koch. LaGuardia and Koch were

both superb mayors, but both were at their weakest during their third terms.

Wagner was mediocre throughout, but never more mediocre than in his final term.

The old showbiz principle, “leave ‘em wanting more” probably applies here. Eight

years may go by too quickly, but it’s hard not to wear out your welcome when you

pass a decade on the job.

While I think Bloomberg risks his legacy by seeking re-election again, that choice

belongs to him and the voters of New York City. The argument that he is changing

the rules in the middle of the game is irrelevant. The rules are anti-democratic and

should be changed. The politicians who argue that the rules should only be

changed for future elections, or only via referendum, are simply self-serving. Even

though I would lift the limits entirely, an increase from two terms to three is a good

start. Let’s change the term limits law and give New Yorkers a chance to either

re-elect or defeat Mayor Bloomberg. Over 60 years ago Winston Churchill told the

British House of Commons, “democracy is the worst form of Government except

all those other forms that have been tried.” I think it’s time to restore democracy to

New York City and repeal term limits.

MORE: BLOOMBERG | DEMOCRACY | GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | PLANYC 2030 | STEVE COHENS BLOG |TERM LIMITS

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Obama and McCain Seem to Understand the Importance of Renewable EnergyBy Steve CohenOctober 10, 2008 | 8:48 a.m.

The good news from the

presidential campaign is that

even though Senator McCain

and Governor Palin have

resorted to swift-boat tactics,

the fundamental issue of

economic well-being has

begun to dominate the race for

the White House. In the past,

that would be bad news for

environmental protection and sustainable development, as we’d be hearing we can

either have either economic growth or environmental protection. Fortunately,

Senator Obama is connecting economic well-being with energy efficiency and

renewability, and he often links science and technology, education and health care

with the growth of our economy. While Senator McCain is not articulating as

comprehensive a case for sustainability, he clearly understands the need for a

focus on renewable energy and basic research and development. Perhaps we have

finally entered the post environmental politics of sustainable development.

In McCain’s case, a relatively sophisticated energy policy is masked by the absurd

and almost obscene mantra of “drill baby drill”. For both candidates, the support

of nuclear power represents attraction to a strategy that is simply infeasible in the

United States. Unless they plan to build nuclear

power plants on military bases, local communities

in this country will always use their veto to defeat

power-plant sitting. Not in my backyard (NIMBY)

is not just a cute phrase around here – it is political

reality. I guess it sounds muscular and

“no-nonsense” to support nuclear power, but every

minute we spend promoting nuclear power in this

country is a minute wasted. If you don’t believe me,

go to the North Shore of Long Island and visit what

remains of the Shoreham Nuclear Power plant.

Built at a cost of $6 billion in 1989, it has never

generated any commercial power, and cost almost









$200 million to decommission. People in Long

Island are still paying the costs of that “power

plant to nowhere.”

Nuclear power is too centralized, too capital

intensive and too politically contentious to be a serious contributor to our energy

needs here in the United States. I rarely waste much effort in making these points

because I think the forces of economic and political gravity will bring nuclear

power down – it really doesn’t need my help. I know nuclear proponents say that

before people are forced to sit in the dark they will turn to nuclear power.

Fortunately for all of us that won’t be necessary. Our country wastes so much

energy that we can meet much of our increased needs with enhanced energy

efficiency. Coupled with the development of renewable energy, we should be able

to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, without needing nuclear power.

The economic crash around us is scary and will cause great pain, but it may also

represent an opportunity to put our economy on a more sustainable footing. In the

second presidential debate October 7th, Senator Obama recalled John Kennedy’s

national goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960’s. He then seemed to call

for a similar “stretch goal” for renewable energy. He and Senator McCain both

explicitly connected renewable energy and energy efficiency to renewed economic

growth and green jobs. Obama cited the case of computers and the Internet as

mass consumer items that developed as a result of government-funded basic

research. Both candidates articulated the basic formula that we need to replicate:

Government-funded basic science and engineering research, leading to new

technology that is then transferred to the private sector. The private sector takes

that new technology and develops the consumer goods that lead to new products

and economic growth.

As we struggle to untangle our economy from the financial mess that envelopes us,

it‘s a good idea to return to the basics of wealth generation. The type of creativity

that drives a modern, post-industrial economy requires careful use of resources

and the application of new technology to meet human needs. When we invent new

technologies that help people in their daily lives, we often improve quality of life

and create wealth. It is clear that reducing the cost and environmental impact of

the energy we use is an urgent priority. A technical breakthrough on renewable

energy could have the same impact that we saw with the light bulb, the automobile,

refrigeration, the computer or the Internet. It may be wishful thinking, but the

other night during the second debate I got the clear impression that both of our

presidential candidates get it. If only we hadn’t wasted the past eight years….

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | EFFICIENCY | JOHN MCCAIN | NUCLEAR POWER | RENEWABLE ENERGY | STEVECOHENS BLOG

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Green Jobs and Rebuilding Our Economy: Beyond the Presidential CampaignsBy Steve CohenOctober 20, 2008 | 12:05 p.m

During the recent presidential

debates Senator John McCain

said developing green

technologies and alternative

energies can "get our economy

going by creating millions of

jobs." On this point Senator

Barak Obama agreed: "If we

create a new energy economy,

we can create 5 million jobs, easily, here in the United States."

Despite the enthusiasm of the presidential candidates, in recent days we've seen

lots of old-style thinking that the financial crisis would require steming efforts to

build a green economy. The concern is that a recession is the wrong time to

increase the costs of energy by regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions. This

is the old environment/economic growth trade off. However, if we reduce carbon

dioxide emissions by making our cars, homes, appliances and businesses more

energy efficient, we can reduce pollution while making our economy more efficient

and cost effective. In Tom Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded he

correctly observes that the effort to go green could actually allow the United States

to maintain its economic power through the 21st century.

We do seem to be taking some modest steps in the direction of building a

renewable energy industry. At least, we are no

longer in danger of moving backward. Renewable

fuel tax credits for businesses and consumers were

extended as part of the $700 billion economic

rescue plan approved by Congress during the first

week of October. They include: a tax credit for

owners of electric cars, a $20 tax credit per month

to employers of bike commuters and the extension

of the production tax credits and investment tax

credits provisions for renewable energy, according

to US News and World Report.

However, due to the current financial melt-down,









many investors are holding back their capital and

gravitating toward conservative investments. Dean

Robert F. Bruner of the University of Virginia's

Darden School of Business, told Politico in early

October: "The problem with state-of-the-art green

ventures is their payoff horizons are further in the future than was the case with

the technology sector."

Yet Bruner believes that Obama's plan to inject $15 billion annually into private

efforts to build clean energy could help stimulate new investment. The sum, when

compared with federal research into health and defense projects, is small, Bruner

told Politico, but "it is a material step up. It would help to draw talent into

universities and private enterprise. It would be a signal of serious intent for

venture capitalists to follow along."

According to Obama's website, the goal is to, "Invest $150 billion over 10 years to

accelerate the commercialization of plug‐in hybrids, promote development of

commercial scale renewable energy, encourage energy efficiency, invest in low

emissions coal plants, advance the next generation of bio-fuels and fuel

infrastructure, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid."

Obama would also establish a federal investment program to help manufacturing

centers modernize and help Americans learn new skills to produce "green"

products. Within this program is an increased $1 billion per year federal

investment for the research and development of advanced technologies.

Alternatively, McCain would, establish a permanent tax credit equal to 10% of

wages spent on R&D. "At a time when our companies need to be more competitive,

we need to provide a permanent incentive to innovate, and remove the uncertainty

now hanging over businesses as they make R&D investment decisions," his

campaign websites states. The site goes on to observe that "green jobs and green

technology will be vital to our economic future. There is no reason that the US

should not be a leader in developing and deploying these new technologies."

For McCain, many of the "green jobs" would be in clean coal and nuclear power.

I'm not sure how green I would consider those jobs, but at least the idea is to

reduce the impact of fossil fuels on the environment.

It's pretty obvious that Obama has a more comprehensive and assertive approach

to investment in renewables, but we will need to do a great deal more if we are

going to transform the energy base of our economy away from fossil fuels. What is

needed is nothing short of the same level of investment in basic science and

applied research and development that the United States undertook after World

War II. The Cold War motivated us to build a science establishment that set the

pace for the world. We are going to need to do that again with a focus on renewable

and more efficient energy.

As Obama correctly notes, we need to stimulate investment to accelerate

commercialization of existing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

But we also need to develop new technology. Basic science research capacity must

be expanded in the United States. This means attracting the world's best scientific

minds by re-opening the doors we slammed shut after 9/11. We also need to

dramatically and rapidly increase government support for scientific research. In

addition, we need to enhance our effort to increase science literacy in elementary

schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges. The economy of the present


runs on brainpower, and the economy of the future will be even more reliant on

technological innovation. The importance of education to our economy has been a

theme of the Obama campaign, and it has been encouraging to see him emphasize

this critical point.

I am grateful for the extensive research for this piece provided by Sara

Schonhardt, 2009 Master's Candidate, School of International and Public Affairs,

Columbia University.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | ENERGY EFFICIENCY | GREEN | GREEN JOBS | JOHN MCCAIN | NUCLEAR |PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN | RENEWABLE ENERGY | STEVE COHENS BLOG

What If?Submitted by PIlawyer on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 16:08.I wonder where we would be if McCain was President?www.inkcloners.com


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Who Put the Senators in Charge?

The Debate: Duane Says Little, Diaz Attacks His Leadership

Thompson's Options: Senator (Risky),Comptroller (Safer), Mayor (TK)

Joe the Plumber is the Symbol for What’sWrongBy Steve CohenOctober 23, 2008 | 3:35 p.m

If you read the transcript of

the now famous exchange

between Senator Obama and

Joe the Plumber, you learn

that Obama was making the

point that rich people like him

and those that make more

than $250,000 a year should

pay more taxes so that people

who make less can pay fewer

taxes – and so we can invest in

our future. Now we learn from

Senator McCain and the Fox

News Channel that this is a

fundamental principle of

communism. I don’t think so. Let’s try to remember folks: In a communist system

no one is supposed to make $250,000. It turns out that Joe is probably not about

to make $250,000, has missed a few tax payments and may not even be a

plumber. This is the symbolic hero of the McCain-Palin ticket.

We have all gotten used to the loose relationship between truth and American

politics during this long and tedious presidential campaign. What is most

disconcerting about this recent decent into attack

politics is that it moves us further away from the

discussion about debt and responsibility that we

need to have in this country.

The fact is that we are living beyond our means.

Individually and as a nation, we are saving too

little and spending too much. We assume taxation

is too high, and that “people can do a better job of

spending their own money than the government

can.” Perhaps that is true, but it’s beside the point.

The market is the best way we know to efficiently

produce and distribute goods and services and to





More Columns >> Same-Sex Marriage Advocates Say They Go to the Senate, Potentially, With 'Momentum'

A Crushing Legacy of Bush

generate wealth. But a market left on its own will

result in the rich getting richer and the poor

getting poorer. The mixed economies of the 20th

and 21st centuries found a better way. Through regulation of capitalism and

investment in collective resources like schools, roads, water, sewage treatment and

other infrastructure we created enough wealth to build a mass middle class. Yes,

we learned how to spread the wealth around … We found it created a class of

consumers that fueled economic growth. This wasn’t done by the free market

alone. It was done by our government working with the private sector. That is the

beauty of a mixed economy. It balances individual and community benefits. The

myth of government as the enemy of the people has been a cynical manipulation by

politicians who should know better.

The problem is that we have placed too much emphasis in our culture on

consumerism and not enough on other values. The idea of sacrifice, thrift and

saving has been thoroughly discredited. The idea of government as an instrument

of good and an expression of our national community has been discarded. The

result has been the economic meltdown we are now struggling to avert. Which

brings me to Joe the Plumber and John McCain: If this country is truly “first”, why

isn’t it patriotic to pay your fair share of taxes? Why are we celebrating a guy who

is too selfish to pay his fair share?

There is this idea that government is a big, fat wasteful bureaucracy. Otherwise,

why would we be running such a huge deficit? Let’s remember that when Bill

Clinton left the White House we were running a federal surplus. Here in New York,

Mayor Mike Bloomberg managed to put money into a rainy day fund. Did

Washington suddenly become wasteful in January 2001? George W Bush assumed

the presidency, lowered taxes, started an expensive war and refused to ask the

American people to sacrifice anything – except the lives of soldiers. We asked

nothing of the many and everything of the few. It’s a shameful principle and it is at

the heart of our problem as a nation.

So here we are celebrating this guy who may or may not be a plumber who doesn’t

like to pay his taxes. At the very point when we need to take a deep breath and

re-sort our priorities, we are back to the old anti-government nonsense. This is a

national moment when we are going to have to figure out a way to reform our

educational institutions and rebuild our energy and transportation infrastructure.

It will take sacrifice, deferred gratification and investment in the future. Our

current path guarantees that our children will be poisoned and impoverished. We

need to call on the better part of our culture and our values: The part that

heroically withstood imprisonment during the Vietnam War: the part that decided

not to go from Harvard Law to a fancy law firm, but to work as a community

organizer in Chicago. Barak Obama is a man of deep principle. John McCain is a

genuine American hero. We should celebrate their values and follow their example.

Not the one offered by Joe the Plumber.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | ELECTION | FUTURE | GREEN | JOE THE PLUMBER | JOHN MCCAIN | MICHAELBLOOMBERG | STEVE COHENS BLOG | TAXES | VALUES

He was more like the jester


Submitted by Sigur Ros on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 15:45.He was more like the jester during elections. I still feel like laughing thinking about the popularity that mass-media created around him... And he was just a fake... a political kitschy image... As far as I know he never planned to build a Fort Worth plumber< http://www.fortworthtxplumber.com > company... the video was ordered by McCaine just to ruin Obama's image. However, these dirty solutions that McCaine tried to use had no effect.


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A Discussion on a Sustainable Planet, City and CampusBy Steve CohenOctober 30, 2008 | 1:19 a.m.

It has now been almost a half

century since the idea of a

global and interconnected

biosphere was popularized by

environmental pioneers such

as Rachel Carson and Barry

Commoner. It's been about

four decades since astronauts

broadcast the first images of

our small, fragile bright blue planet from outer space. Until then, the idea of an

interdependent planet was an abstraction. Those photos made the idea of our

connectivity quite real.

Today, the issue of global sustainability has moved front and center in our political

process, and it is reflected in the way we think about economic development,

poverty eradication and even in the way we live. Movie stars and politicians have

to think about their carbon footprint-and so do the rest of us.

There is increasing evidence that we humans have damaged the planet that

sustains us. We see species dying along with poisoned air, polluted water and

degraded land. The issue of global climate change is the first widely recognized

example of a problem that is created locally, but impacts all of us globally. This is

the first of these problems we have come to

recognize, but it will not be the last one that we will

discover.

Here in New York City we are fortunate that an

increasing number of our local leaders have figured

out that we need to move our city to a more

sustainable future. On October 23, I had the

pleasure of moderating a discussion here at

Columbia University about sustainability in New

York City and around the world. Columbia

President Lee C. Bollinger hosted the latest of his

World Leaders Forum events and the panel


+EnlargeFlickr via Sylvain Leprovost





discussion focused on environmental stewardship

through Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's PlaNYC

initiative, Columbia's contributions to the city's

sustainable future, and the role that New Yorkers play in the global effort. Panelists

included:

Rohit T. Aggarwala, Director of the Office of

Long-term Planning and Sustainability in the New

York City Mayor's Office.

Kelly Kleinert, a student at the College of Physicians

and Surgeons, Columbia University.

Klaus S. Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of

Geophysics at Columbia University and Director of

the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at The

Earth Institute.

Lionel McIntyre, Founding Director of the Urban

Technical Assistance Project at Columbia UniversityOur discussion focused on a number of key questions:

How does the unique infrastructure of New York City

change the way we approach environmental

stewardship? Does New York City have a heightened

responsibility to demonstrate its commitment to

sustainable design and encourage innovative

development concepts in cities around the world?

What are the distinct problems, and opportunities

presented by New York City as it seeks to mitigate its

climate impact and adapt to global warming?

How is Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC initiative being

enacted in New York, and what does it mean to be a

PlaNYC 2030 Challenge Partner? How are the

PlaNYC goals related to the unique urbanization and

architecture of the City of New York?

What distinct responsibilities do institutions of

higher learning have in environmental stewardship?

What role is Columbia University playing in reaching

the PlaNYC 2030 goals?


How can each individual at Columbia play a greater

role in the push toward environmental

sustainability?

The discussion highlighted the advantages New York City has as a green city. Our

mass transit system, our water system and our population density make New York

City one of the most energy efficient and sustainable places in the United States.

Columbia, like many of the city's larger institutions, is working to improve our

energy efficiency, reduce our carbon footprint and increase the amount of waste it

recovers. Our goal is to reduce the environmental impact of our activities.

One of the insightful contributions to our panel discussion on the 23rd was

introduced by Professor McIntyre. He made the point that sustainability needed to

be connected to other important goals, such as increased employment

opportunities, poverty reduction and elimination of homelessness. If sustainability

does not include economic development for those who are struggling to make a

living, then it is not a sustainable idea itself. As Professor Lackner mentioned, we

can't very well tell poor people in the developing world that the way to reduce

carbon dioxide emissions is for the rich to continue to consume at current levels

and the poor to remain poor. Other panelists agreed, and Rohit Aggarwala from

the Mayor's office also made the point of connecting sustainability issues to

education, quality of life and the city's effort to reduce homelessness and poverty.

Our conversation concluded with a discussion of what individuals can do to

promote sustainability. Kelly Kleinert, a medical student who is active in a number

of campus environmental groups, discussed the many initiatives that students are

undertaking to make the campus more sustainable.

In the end, the issue of global sustainability requires all of us to think about the

effect of our lifestyles on this planet. We need our government to develop

incentives to go green, we need our institutions-in this case our universities-- to

deploy those incentives and build sustainability into our buildings, work processes,

and transport systems. We also need everyone to take personal responsibility for

their own environmental impacts. Kelly and her fellow students give me hope for

the future. It is our responsibility to ensure that the planet we leave to them will be

a livable one.

MORE: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | NEW YORK | STEVE COHENS BLOG |SUSTAINABILITY


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Let’s Not Give Up On the Idea of a More FuelEfficient Taxi Fleet in NYCBy Steve CohenNovember 1, 2008 | 12:15 p.m

Last week, another element of

Mayor Bloomberg's plan for

sustainable transportation was

dealt a significant, but by no

means fatal setback. A federal

judge blocked implementation

of the requirement that all of

the City's cabs be powered by

hybrid engines. According to

The New York Times' Sewell Chan: "In his ruling, Judge Crotty, who was the

city's corporation counsel from 1994 to 1997, under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani,

agreed to block the city from enforcing the rule because the plaintiffs were likely to

succeed in their key legal argument - that the new regulations were pre-empted

under federal law, which reserve regulation of fuel economy and emissions

standards to federal agencies."

While the City has the right to regulate cabs through its system of licenses or

medallions, and has been allowed to issue new medallions targeted at hybrid cabs,

the blanket regulation requiring hybrids was thrown out. Although gasoline prices

have recently dropped, most people expect them to rise again - and sooner rather

than later. Why then would the fleet owners resist regulations requiring them to

use more cost-efficient autos? The answer is simple and has a lot to do with the

economics of the cab industry. For the most part,

the people that own cabs don't drive them and

don't pay for the gas. Drivers lease the cars from

the fleet owners and the drivers pay for the gas. As

anyone who prices a hybrid vehicle knows, there is

a premium on hybrid engines. Hybrid cars and

trucks cost more. The fleet owners, not the drivers,

would incur the costs of upgrading to hybrid cabs.

The drivers would save money on the gasoline.

Of course, the fleet owners could and would pass

the increased costs of the hybrids along to the

drivers in their lease charges, but apparently the


+EnlargeFlickr via beggs





fleet owners and their trade association just don't

like being told what to do by the big bad

Bloomberg administration. Perhaps they think that

drivers are incapable of doing the math. The extra fee in their lease for hybrids

would be more than offset by savings in gasoline. It just makes sense. Given the

distances taxis drive and the amount of gas they take to run, hybrid cabs would

provide a return on their extra cost much faster than you or I would make back our

extra investment.

The fleet owners' arguments against hybrids are that the hybrids now on the

market are too small and fragile to handle New York's streets. Perhaps they have

not been to Bogota, Colombia, or Mexico City, where most of the cabs are small

micro compacts that bounce along streets that are much worse than New York's.

Perhaps no one has told them that the Chevy Malibu and Tahoe, Cadillac Escalade,

Saturn Aura, and GMC Yukon are now all available with hybrid engines. And let's

not forget Ford, with its Escape hybrid or the hybrid Toyota Camry.

Fortunately for New York City, higher fuel efficiency standards will be coming from

Washington in 2009. The American auto industry is closing its SUV plants and

seems to be slowly figuring out what its Japanese and Korean competitors figured

out a while ago. While Americans have a love affair with big, comfortable cars, they

drive too much to afford all of the gasoline it takes to power them. The fleet owners

may be preventing New York City from getting ahead of the federal rules, but it's a

temporary victory for them at best.

Meanwhile, instead of requiring hybrids, why not find a way to tax the fleet owners

in a way that makes hybrid cabs more cost effective for them in the first place?

Let's encourage rather than require energy efficiency. Perhaps the city should

charge an extra licensing fee for cabs that don't have hybrid engines. If fleet owners

insist on using gas-guzzlers, perhaps an annual charge of say, $1,000 might get

them to rethink their priorities. If that doesn't work, perhaps in the interest of

reducing congestion (not regulating fuel efficiency), the surcharge might be based

on the weight of the cab, rather than the engine type or gas mileage. That might

encourage the use of smaller and more energy efficient cabs. Smaller cabs would

take up less of the scarce space on our city's congested streets. While mandating

hybrids might be illegal, it seems to me that the City has a number of other powers

that could be used to encourage a more fuel efficient cab fleet. I think it's time to

get creative.

MORE: FUEL EFFICIENCY | GREEN | HYBRIDS | NEW YORK CITY | RUDOLPH GIULIANI | STEVE COHENS BLOG |TAXIS

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The Pageant of DemocracyBy Steve CohenNovember 5, 2008 | 9:58 a.m.

Tuesday morning the pageant

of democracy began in

earnest. At 6:15am on West

120th street off Morningside

Drive, I stood with my

neighbors in the longest

polling line I have seen in

more than two decades of

voting on the Upper West

Side. Reading about the death

of Barak Obama’s

grandmother as I waited in line, I thought of my own grandparents, long gone, and

the journey that took all four from Russia and Poland to Ellis Island and the

shadow of the Statue of Liberty nearly a century ago. America is a great country

because it is, as John Kennedy once termed it, “a nation of immigrants”. Some

immigrants were brought here unwillingly in chains from Africa, but then their

descendants also became immigrants in a great migration from the American

South to the North. It is also true that Native Americans were exterminated and

driven from their homes. The American story is far from perfect.

But today is a day for the promise of the American dream. This is a day for the

racism that remains a shameful part of our heritage to take a seat in the back of the

bus, replaced by the hope and tolerance that is at

the heart of who we are. This country is changing,

and this unimaginable election is proof of that

change. As former New York City Mayor David

Dinkins once said, we are not a melting pot, but a

gorgeous mosaic. Each tile or community has its

own distinct characteristics, but when one steps

back, a beautiful picture emerges.

The great strength of the American experiment has

been its tolerance of people from other parts of the

world. Never perfect, this is now threatened by a

post 9/11 fear of immigration and immigrants.

There is this idea that immigrants take American

jobs and somehow damage American traditions. Of





More Columns >> the Environmentcourse, as immigrant families like the Kennedys of

Boston and the Obamas of Hawaii and Chicago demonstrate, the power of the

American dream has long been its ability to absorb those who come to this shore.

People are not assimilated, but immigrants are changed by America and change

America as well. My family is a long way from its roots in Eastern Europe, and we

are now truly Americans, but this is not the America my grandparents came to. It is

a better place than that. The talents and historic memories of all of the people of

this planet have managed to make their way to this country – this amazing

experiment that was once called the new world. That is of course, the greatness of

America.

With a global economy, instant communications, and an emerging world youth

culture, we are poised for an American century based on the fact that America is a

place that can continue to attract the world’s talents. Economic growth is based on

the ability to develop and deploy brainpower. While our education system is not

doing all it needs to develop brainpower, this country still attracts people from all

over the world and puts them to work. In New York City, 40% of the people who

live here were born in other nations. There is no place in the world that can say

that and truly lay claim to being the center of the modern world.

Judging by the look of the line I stood in Tuesday, Barak Obama was clearly the

president of Morningside Heights. By 11:00pm Tuesday night, he had become

president of the rest of this nation, if not the world. Like many of my

contemporaries, the news that Barak would soon be President Obama brought

tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. Listening to him on election eve, and seeing

his family join with the Biden family was like watching a movie or a dream.

President-Elect Obama is correct of course: It is not a dream. It is a challenge to

public service and a call to create a true national community. Just like the movies

though, it has come in the nick of time.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | DAVID DINKINS | ELECTIONS | GREEN | IMMIGRATION | JOHN F. KENNEDY | STEVECOHENS BLOG

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Financial Stress May End Up Stimulating a Greener EconomyBy Steve CohenNovember 9, 2008 | 8:11 p.m

With the city's tax revenues

melting down along with our

local economy, Mayor Michael

Bloomberg and people in and

around government are

floating a number of large and

small tax proposals. The idea

of tolls on the East River

bridges and even the recently

defeated proposal to institute

congestion pricing are once

again getting serious attention as the MTA faces the need to make up revenue

shortfalls. About half a million vehicles cross to and from Manhattan on those

bridges each work day, and depending on the amount charged, a toll could

generate up to $1 billion a year. It would also have the impact of reducing

pollution, traffic and congestion in Lower Manhattan. It could also reduce the size

and pain of the next subway fare hike.

In addition to reviving fees on drivers, Mayor Bloomberg has proposed charging

shoppers 6 cents for each plastic bag they are given when they shop. The fee would

be then divided, with 5 cents going to raise city revenue and the remaining 1 cent

to be kept by the storeowner as an incentive to comply, Bloomberg spokesman

Marc La Vorgna recently told the New York

Times.

The proposed charge has been labeled a "fee,"

which requires approval only from the City

Council, rather than a "tax," which requires

approval from the State Legislature. Los Angeles

and Dallas are also looking at similar measures, as

is San Francisco, which last year banned

non-biodegradable plastic bags used by grocery

stories and large retailers. If the City enacts a fee,

however, New York would become the first US city

to implement a plastic bag surcharge.






Understanding Public Opinion About the Environment In 2002, Ireland imposed a plastic bag

consumption tax that required customers to pay 33

cents per bag at the register. Within weeks plastic bag use dropped 94 percent, and

after five months $4.5 million in revenue had been raised for environmental

projects. Similar initiatives have spread to countries such as Bangladesh, which

banned polythene bags, and South Africa, where the government requires

manufacturers to make plastic bags more durable and more expensive to

discourage their disposal.

It is difficult to predict how much revenue the bag fee would bring in, since we

don't know how many people would switch to cloth or paper bags. Estimates range

from $10 million to $16 million dollars annually; not a lot of money in a $60 billion

budget, but perhaps enough to restore some hours to the library budgets that will

be cut next year. Of course, if people reduce their use of plastic bags, fewer will end

up in our garbage cans, lowering the cost of transporting and disposing waste. So

either way, the city saves money. New York City spends about $1.3 billion dollars a

year on its Sanitation Department. This breaks down to about $600 million for

cleaning streets and collecting garbage, $400 million for disposing of the waste

($300 million in "waste export" contracts), $100 million for administration and

$100 million for managing the Sanitation Department's vehicles and buildings. It

also includes $35 million for snow removal and $16 million for enforcement. Only

$28 million is spent on recycling.

An effort to reduce packaging and waste and increase recycling might not only help

protect the environment, if properly managed, it could reduce the cost of waste

transport, storage and disposal. Reducing the amount of garbage we generate

would (eventually) reduce the $1.3 billion spent on waste removal and is just one

small way to deal with the budget crisis we face.

In fact, that crisis gives us an opportunity to look at waste throughout our city and

economy. We can live just as well tomorrow as we do today if we become more

efficient and less wasteful in our use of resources. Better insulation in our homes,

more efficient lighting and water use, reduced packaging - all can lower our costs

without reducing our standard of living.

There is talk from the Obama transition team that the proposed $150-billion

investment in renewable energy may become part of the plan to revive the nation's

economy. In addition, public investment in modern infrastructure could have the

effect of creating jobs while making our nation more energy efficient. A new school

or bus garage with modern water, heating, lighting and cooling technologies will be

less resource intensive than the structure it replaces.

The dramatic slowdown in the economy is frightening, and it is clear that many

people will suffer as a result of the business failures we are starting to see.

However, an unanticipated impact of this decline is that it is making many people

and institutions look at their own consumption, and this reexamination can have a

beneficial impact. This is not an argument for the virtues of poverty, since I find

few virtues in a lack of resources. Rather it is an argument for thinking, for being

smarter and less wasteful. If a new air conditioner can deliver the same cooling as

an old one but uses half the electricity, then it makes sense to help people buy a

new one. If carrying our groceries in a cloth bag is cheaper than carrying them in a


disposable plastic bag, we should encourage people to abandon the plastic bag and

carry the cloth one.

We see that the era of freewheeling excess on Wall Street has ended. This looks like

the start of a period characterized by more prudent and careful investors learning

to work within a more regulated financial system. Perhaps this trend will be

matched by a more careful and frugal use of natural resources in our every day

lives.

I am grateful for the research assistance of Sara Schonhardt, Master's Student,

Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | ECONOMY | GREEN | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | PLASTIC BAG TAX | REVENUE | STEVECOHENS BLOG | SUSTAINABILITY | WASTE REDUCTION


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Beyond Consumerism to SustainabilityBy Steve CohenNovember 14, 2008 | 2:30 p.m

The economic meltdown that

began on Wall Street has

spread to the rest of the nation

and most of the world.

Economic decline shapes the

mindset of many American

consumers as they start to

hold their cash in the bank or

hide it under their mattresses.

On November 11, New York

Times reporter David

Leonhardt wrote an incisive

piece on this issue:

"For decades - from the 1950s

through the 1980s - Americans spent about 91 percent of their income, on average,

and put away the rest. In the last few years, they have spent close to 99 percent

and saved only about 1 percent. This simply cannot continue. For one thing, people

need to pay down their debts and replenish their retirement accounts. For another,

the psychology of spending and saving may well be changing."

The motor of the world economy has been American consumption. Our culture

and politics are centered on it, and ever increasing

levels of consumption has built the US economy.

Take as an example my apartment, which was built

during the first part of the twentieth century. By

modern American standards the closets are quite

small, but the upper middle class folks that lived

there when it was new owned many fewer articles

of clothing than we own today. In a similar vein,

look at the sidewalk outside a New York City

apartment building on garbage pick-up day. You

will see a small mountain of green plastic bags. We

use a lot more stuff than we used to, and we throw

out more garbage too. When my kids were growing

up, each of them had more toys than my friends


+EnlargeFlickr via scalleja



More Columns >> the Environmentand I could even imagine back when we were

growing up in the 1950's and ‘60s. More evidence: look at all those suburban

families that park their cars in their driveways because their garages are filled with

junk.

President-elect Barack Obama had many advantages in his competition against

John McCain, but nothing factored into the debate more than fears over the

declining economy. Why does the economy play such a central role in our politics

and culture? At least four things are going on:

First, of course, we are addicted to accumulating new

toys: iPods, computers, flat-screen TVs, clothes, new

kinds of food-whatever strikes our imagination.

Second, is the very image of poverty. The picture

planted in our brain is a black-and-white photo from

the 1930's of people in gray tattered clothes waiting

for soup, bread, a job or anything that might make

their lives less miserable. We desperately want to

avoid becoming part of that picture.

The third factor is ingrained in the American dream,

the idea that our children's lives should be better

than our own. As a parent I feel responsible for the

well being of my children, and so in this economy I

worry about my ability to provide them with the

things they need to get a good start in life.

Fourth, is the fear of an old age of dependence and

poverty. Social Security and Medicare are popular in

all segments of our society. Liberals, moderates and

conservatives all support government provision of

these benefits. Many of us worry about a time when

we might be too old or too weak to care for ourselves.

It is clear from Leonhardt's report, that Americans consume almost everything

they make. Our economy over the past several decades has been built on this very

high level of consumption. Automobile sales dropped by a third in the past several

months, but that does not mean everyone needs to start walking. It means people

are keeping their cars longer, and maybe some suburban teenagers will not be

getting their own cars this year.

When we think about our quality of life, replacing material consumption with

reflection, thought, conversation, exercise, exploration, social engagement or even

public service might not be the end of the world. Fewer trips to the mall may be


bad for the economy, but might not be so bad for us. The problem is when

economies slow down, it's always the poorest among us that suffer the most. Mass

economic life is difficult to understand and the psychology of a slowdown is

unpredictable and frightening.

This is where government and public policy comes in. We have learned that the

free market is the best way to create wealth, but it needs to be tempered by public

investment in goods and services that the market either can't produce or can't

make available to enough people. It may be that we need to prop up the finance

industry and the automobile industry to get past the current crisis of confidence,

but it is time to invest in the infrastructure and services needed to make our nation

and planet more sustainable.

We need to invest in education, communication, mass transportation, parks,

water, sewage treatment, waste disposal and recyling, science, R & D, health care

and all of the collective goods that the market won't create. This will mean higher

taxes and less individual consumption. But we will become the kind of society that

has learned to defer gratification to build a better future. Without these

investments, we will become a second-rate economy less able to compete in the

global market place. At one time we knew how to invest in the future. We built

roads, water systems, universities, airports, bridges and hospitals. We need to

learn how to build for the future again.

The reason we mistrust public investment is that we don't trust the government to

be efficient and effective in putting our money to work. While I advocate

government investment, I don't favor the construction of 1930's-style government

bureaucracies to do this work. We need a partnership between the public and

private sectors. Government contracting with and investment in the private sector

can achieve the results we need.

If you'd like to learn more about what I mean (plug, plug) you might want to take a

look at a new book Bill Eimicke and I have written called The Responsible

Contract Manager. We believe that public-private partnerships can work. By

combining the expertise and efficiency of market-driven firms with public

purposes, we can get the most out of our public investments. The single-minded

worship of private enterprise and higher levels of consumption may be coming to

an end. This does not mean that quality of life needs to decline. If we manage the

transition correctly, we could build a better country than the one we have now.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CONSUMPTION | ECONOMIC CRISIS | GREEN | SAVINGS | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Food for the HolidaysBy Steve CohenNovember 20, 2008 | 10:02 a.m.

On November 19 Columbia

University and the Manhattan

Borough President's Office

held a conference on The

Politics of Food. The half-day

conference was devoted to one

of New York City's biggest

challenges: ensuring that the

public has ready access to

high-quality food. Speakers

included Columbia President

Lee Bollinger, Manhattan

Borough President Scott

Stringer, New York Mayor

Michael Bloomberg and H.E.

Father Miquel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the United Nations General

Assembly.

At the conference, Mayor Bloomberg linked the food issue to what he considers to

be his administration's most important achievement - increased life expectancy for

the people who live here. That figure is now greater than the average longevity of

the U.S. population as a whole, and "if that's not the purpose of government, I

don't know what is," said the mayor.

Speaking after Father d'Escoto, Bloomberg said the

City will continue its agenda of making New York a

healthier city and a better place.

He touched on the administration's anti-smoking

campaign, which four years from the time of its

implementation in 2002 had reduced the number

of smokers by 240,000. The City's smoking rate for

2006 was the lowest on record at 17.5%, lower than

all but five US states - California, Washington,

Idaho, Utah and Connecticut, according to the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That





More Columns >> Understanding Public Opinion About the Environment achievement demonstrates that New York City can

play a leadership role and serve as a model for

other cities as they push for change.

"New York is still the city people look to for so many trends, and we need to keep

focusing on these things," Bloomberg said, referring to the City's newest battles on

calories, trans-fat and the sodium content in packaged food products.

As part of its drive to create a healthy, happy city, the Mayor's Office has three

goals:

Get city agencies to abide by high nutrition standards

that include lowering salt and calorie contents and

supplying more high-fiber meals;

Make healthy food more affordable; and

Bring healthier food to low-income neighborhoods.Each year New York City schools serve 225 million meals, more than any other US

agency other than the Defense Department. The challenge, Bloomberg noted, is

getting people to eat the healthy food provided. In other places getting people to

eat healthy means increasing access to nutritious food. More than ¼ of all Harlem

residents are obese, a health problem that continues to get worse even as the city

become more environmentally friendly, Bloomberg noted.

The city is pushing bodegas and other local grocery shops to stock more fruits,

vegetables and low-fat milk and dairy products. It has also extended a program

that offers free in-class breakfast to students.

"Even in difficult financial times New Yorkers are living longer, healthier lives,"

Bloomberg said during his closing remarks. "We're not going to walk away from

our opportunity to invest in the future, whatever the cost."

Bloomberg's comments echoed those of Father d'Escoto, who attributed the

current food crisis to unsustainable government policies. The UN president called

the fact that so many people now suffer from hunger and malnutrition "downright

sinful," suggesting a need to move beyond "monocultural homogeneity" in food

production to biodiversity. "A politics of food needs to be rooted in the local and

communal," he said. "We must put people first, and listen to the voices of those

most affected by poverty and hunger."

A study recently released by the UNEP stated that organic farming can deliver

increased yields thought to be the preserve of industrial farming, an important

finding given that current methods of production are no longer sustainable. "We

need a multi-functional approach to food production that has a concern for the

poor, the Earth and our communities," d'Escoto said.

In later breakout sessions Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City

Coalition Against Hunger, took up the issue of food charity, referring to a

November 19 news bulletin that Wal-Mart will begin giving more than 90

million pounds of fresh food annually to the nation's largest nonprofit organization

addressing hunger, Feeding America.


"Charity alone will not solve the problem," said the author of All You Can Eat, a

book on US hunger, obesity and poverty, noting a 40 percent increase in the

federal food safety net would be needed if we hoped to end all hunger in the United

States. The challenge of dealing with hunger is great. According to the United

States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the number of Americans who couldn't

afford a full and stable supply of food rose by 700,000 in 2007. Even before the

economic slowdown, more than 36 million Americans - including 12 million

children - were considered "food-insecure" by the U.S. government.

Berg and the panel speaking on the urban food agenda addressed problems with

food stamps, school meals and increasing community coordination. The Director

of Special Projects for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local

1500, Pat Purcell, went straight to the point: "Good food, good jobs and good

health are the building blocks of every community."

As winter approaches and the economy continues to slip, the danger is that more

people will go hungry. This is certainly a global issue, and the end of world hunger

is a constant mission of my Earth Institute colleagues Jeff Sachs, Pedro Sanchez

and Cheryl Palm. They are working every day to help stimulate a "green

revolution" in African agriculture. Here in the United States, we need no

agricultural revolution. There is more than enough food for everyone. It is

disgusting and morally repulsive that anyone in this nation should ever go to sleep

hungry.

This is the season when those of us who still have a little money in the bank need to

think about how much to give to charity. I know we are all considering reducing

the gifts we give each other. That makes sense. But let's not be stingy to those in

need. As we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year let's demonstrate our

thanks-by continuing our giving. And let's try to remember that all the non-profits

and charities we gave to last year will need even more help this holiday season.

MORE: POLITICS | CHARITY | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | FOOD | GREEN | HEALTH | HUNGER | JOEL BERG | LEEBOLLINGER | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | MIQUEL D'ESCOTO | SOCIAL INCLUSION | STEVE COHENS BLOG | UNITEDNATIONS


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Investing in theRegion’s MassTransit

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Pataki Explains Palin's Readiness

Community Organizers Beg to Differ

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Investing in the Region’s Mass TransitBy Steve CohenDecember 1, 2008 | 2:43 a.m.

This summer I wrote about

the need for increased public

subsidies for mass transit and

about the importance of

keeping transit fares as low as

possible. Due to over

borrowing for capital

improvements during the

Pataki administration and the

reduction in revenues from the City's real-estate transfer tax, estimates of the size

of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's budget deficit continue to grow.

The most recent estimate is for $1.2 billion in red ink next year. The MTA has

proposed a "doomsday budget" of massive fare increases and widespread service

reductions. They are hoping that the prospect of higher prices for less service will

somehow scare the courageous and forward-looking leaders in Albany into action.

It's like the School Board that threatens to cancel school bus service if they don't

get their budget passed - a desperate and typically ineffective strategy.

The one slight hope that something positive may happen is the Governor's

Commission on MTA Financing now working to address the MTA's deficit.

Appointed by Governor David Patterson and chaired by former MTA chair Richard

Ravitch, the commission has already started reporting early word of its

recommendations. The three ideas for generating

revenues now making the rounds are: a smaller

fare increase, tolls on the East and Harlem River

bridges and a payroll tax of less than half of 1

percent on businesses within the 12 counties

served by the MTA.

According to William Neuman reporting in The

New York Times, the payroll tax would:

"...be designed to raise $1 billion a year or more. It

would be coupled with the new bridge tolls, which

would generate about $600 million a year, after

the cost of maintaining the bridges and collecting

the tolls is accounted for."


+EnlargeAFP/Getty Images



More Columns >> The fare increase, though clearly a political requirement for any additional transit

taxes, remains a mistake. While it is true that we are in our current financial mess

because everybody is looking to get something for nothing, cheap mass transit

makes the city more efficient, productive, environmentally sound and equitable.

The MTA's financial troubles were a predictable part of the fantasy financing of

transit infrastructure brought to us by the infamous three men in the room of New

York State government - George Pataki, Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno. The

government's subsidy for mass transit in New York and its suburbs is too low to

meet the system's real needs. Just as Wall Street had its dream world of finance

built on ever-inflating housing values, and George Bush funded his multi-trillion

dollar war in Iraq with a tax cut, New York State lived beyond its means, and today

we must pay the price. If we don't pay the price we will destroy the transit system

that was nearly destroyed by the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970's.

Ravitch must have wondered, (as Bob Dylan did in Stuck Inside of Mobile with the

Memphis Blues Again) "what price you have to pay to get out of going through all

these things twice." Ravitch led the effort to save the mass transit system once

before. It must seem like déjà vu all over again, or perhaps like the famous radio

alarm in the movie Groundhog Day (remember that Sonny and Cher tune?). Can't

we ever get this right? The Time's Mr Neuman correctly observes that one element

of that rebuilding effort was Ravitch's skill at politics and negotiation. Another

element was the leadership of Governor Hugh Carey. It turned out that a critical

piece of the puzzle from 1975 to 1982 was Carey's ability to forge political

consensus and his willingness to take political heat. It has been a long time since

we had a governor with the political courage needed to address a crisis. New York

State has slowly deteriorated over the past half century from the "Empire State" to

two states: a dynamic region in and around New York City, and a declining

depression zone just about everywhere else.

One of the key elements of the New York City metro area's dynamism is its mass

transit system. Destroy that piece of critical infrastructure and you begin the

process of destroying the region's economic well-being. Mass transit is needed

because the region is simply too congested to have everyone move around in autos,

and it also helps make the region energy efficient and less polluted.

Macroeconomists will point to the danger of raising taxes in an economic

downturn. This is generally true. Tolls on East River bridges have been resisted by

generations of Brooklynites. It's hard to believe that the same dysfunctional state

government that couldn't even take a vote on congestion pricing will have the

courage to finally face up to the MTA's true financial crisis. The argument I would

make for these taxes is that they are likely to be less expensive than the alternative.

The region's businesses need a well-functioning mass transit system to carry

workers and customers to them. It will cost more to rebuild the system after it

collapses then if we pay the cost needed to maintain it today.

The argument for tolling the bridges is the same as it has always been. If people

need to occupy the scarce space on Manhattan's streets with their cars, they should

pay for it. If they can't afford the price, there are excellent mass transit options

open to them. With modern technology, the MTA could easily offer off-peak and

hardship pricing for people who must drive but cannot afford the tolls. In fact, the

state should give every car owner in New York City a few free toll passes each year,

to make the toll more politically acceptable.

With the imminent release of the Ravitch Commission report, the transit system's


financial crisis will reach its carefully designed boiling point. We have the MTA's

"doomsday" straw man plan, and with the commission's report we will have the

new proposal for a more stable revenue stream for the region's transit. Will we

have a government with the talent to meet the challenge?

The early signs look pretty bad. The State Senate cannot get organized and Shelly

Silver continues his traditional "rope a dope." While I am hopeful about Governor

Patterson, the jury is still out. Then of course, we have MTA CEO Lee Sander, who

claims to ride mass transit to work every day but is caught in a hilarious video by

John Deutzman on Fox 5 New York climbing into his chauffeured auto on

numerous occasions. It really makes you want to invest your increased transit tolls

and taxes with this guy, doesn't it? I don't usually go for this type of reporting, but

when will our public officials learn that it is really better just to tell the truth?

MORE: DAVID PATERSON | FARE INCREASE | GEORGE PATAKI | GREEN | MASS TRANSIT | MTA | RAVITCHCOMMISSION | SHELDON SILVER | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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A Competently Managed Federal Program toRevive the EconomyBy Steve CohenDecember 8, 2008 | 12:38 a.m.

The economy lost 533,000

jobs in November, raising the

official US unemployment rate

to 6.7%. When you add to that

the number of people who

have given up their job

searches or are working part

time when they would rather

work full time, our real

unemployment rate is

probably closer to 12.5%. Over

the last year the US economy has lost nearly 2 million jobs. This could be the start

of a depression, the deepest part of a recession or the mid-point of a bigger, but

not catastrophic recession. In my view, government action will determine how

much worse the situation becomes.

The shock of the recent employment data comes at a time when government

continues to debate how to rescue the economy. The Democrats are unhappy about

how the $700 billion stimulus package has been deployed. They want homeowners

and the auto industry to receive some benefit from the $350 billion that remains

unspent. On the other hand, the lame duck Bush administration is focused on

using the bailout funds to ensure the survival of the finance industry and increase

the liquidity of the capital market. The resulting

federal stalemate seems to be ending with a

short-term loan program for American

automakers. But as the economy continues to slide,

it is becoming clearer that we need to rescue all of

them - the finance industry, automakers and

homeowners - and this will probably require more

money and more taxpayer debt.

Part of the problem, as the Congressional

Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported

last week, is that the funding for the finance

industry has not been properly supervised. Less







seems to be getting lent than Congress intended,

and there is a growing fear that the Bush

administration is managing the bailout with the

same lack of skill that they used in Iraq and after Hurricane Katrina. On December

3, citing the GAO report, New York Times' reporter Diana B Henrique wrote:

"...the Treasury Department still does not have the tools needed to monitor

whether the banks that received Treasury investments are keeping their side of the

bargain by using the money to expand available credit and address mortgage

foreclosures. Nor can it ensure that potential conflicts of interest among its

contractors are being adequately disclosed and addressed."

A particular deficiency among the anti-government Bush conservatives who will

continue to run the federal government until January 20 is that they never seemed

to learn how to operate the complex machinery of the US federal government. They

have chased away many of the government's most competent managers, and in

this moment of economic crisis can't seem to figure out how to use the $700 billion

they have demanded to revive the economy. At first they wanted to buy bad debts

and clean the balance sheets of the financial industry. Then they decided to buy

shares of the firms instead. At the end of November we heard Treasury Secretary

Henry Paulson was going to leave half of the fund to the Obama administration,

now he is trying to get all of it released and the Democrats are bargaining to

include help for homeowners and the auto industry in the $350 billion.

While the Bush administration drew a line in the sand and opposed using the $700

bailout for the auto industry, it signaled flexibility in using the $25 billion in loan

guarantees for the development of fuel-efficient cars for the bailout. Initially the

Democrats did not want to use the $25 billion authorized as part of last year's

energy bill for the auto bailout, but in the past several days, Speaker Pelosi has

relented and now agrees to use those funds as long as the Obama administration

replaces them when it come into office.

It is easy to see why the public might be confused with all of this. So one way to

read the story is to recognize that the wheels are off as long as the economic news

keeps worsening. During the presidential campaign, President-elect Obama tried

to keep his new spending proposals under control to prevent the deficit from

growing. Now, and for the next couple of years, however, the size of the deficit does

not matter. The good news is that the Obama team understands the need to ensure

that all of this money we are about to spend be tied to performance indicators and

financial controls.

On December 6, Obama's website posted this message:

"...we need action - and action now. That is why I have asked my economic team to

develop an economic recovery plan for both Wall Street and Main Street that will

help save or create at least two and a half million jobs, while rebuilding our

infrastructure, improving our schools, reducing our dependence on oil, and saving

billions of dollars.

We won't do it the old Washington way. We won't just throw money at the

problem. We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we

achieve -- by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more


competitive in the world."

Since my actual area of expertise is public management (and certainly not

journalism!), I see this last point as particularly critical. We need to use

cutting-edge performance-measurement techniques and ensure true accountability

as we spend the trillion-plus dollars it will take to revive the economy. This is a

tremendous opportunity to invest in the infrastructure that a generation of anti-tax

and anti-government politics has allowed to deteriorate. But we need to ensure

that every dollar invested pays off. The infrastructure we build must have a

multiplier effect on the economy, and we must pick these projects with care. The

new infrastructure must also be competently built and maintained. We need to

spend money on sophisticated management information and performance

management systems, and we must ensure that government contractors are held to

strict performance standards.

When we say the government is going to build subways, improve energy efficiency

in their buildings and rebuild schools, we don't actually mean that government

employees will be doing that work. The work will be done by private firms under

contract to the government. This is not like the New Deal's Works Progress

Administration or Civilian Conservation Corps - during the Great Depression the

government hired people and put them directly to work. The spending now being

discussed will provide billions of dollars in contracts to private firms. This will

resemble the new business that came to private companies when our nation built

its interstate highway system and sewage treatment plants.

We need to make sure these huge capital construction projects are undertaken

with a minimum of corruption but with a minimum of bureaucratic delay as well.

We need a carefully constructed system of incentives and audits to ensure honest

and effective contractor performance. State and local governments throughout the

United States know how to do this. The past generation of scarcity has taught them

how to squeeze water from a stone. Let's make sure now that the funding spigot

has finally opened up that we don't drown in waste, corruption or bureaucracy.

There is a tendency during emergencies to allow performance management and

accountability systems to be circumvented (the War in Iraq's contracting

processes, for example). In this day of low-cost communication and information,

this is not necessary. We can have both speed and accountability.

Strategically, as the president-elect and the nation's governor's seemed to indicate

last week, we should start with projects now underway that have been stalled for

lack of resources. In New York City, the 2nd Avenue Subway, the new Penn Station

and a number of other MTA capital projects should be accelerated. I very much like

Obama's "use it or lose it" declaration. If New York can't move more quickly than

we did at rebuilding Ground Zero, we shouldn't receive any of these federal

monies. As we learned during the Clinton administration with the earned income

tax credit - a tax break directed to the working poor - the key to economic stimulus

is to provide resources to those capable of spending money quickly. The economic

crisis presents both great danger and great opportunity. Our newly elected

president fully understands this, and that fact gives us reason to be hopeful.

MORE: AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY | BARACK OBAMA | CORPORATE MANAGEMENT | FINANCIAL BAILOUT | GREEN| HENRY PAULSON | REFORM | STEVE COHENS BLOG | UNEMPLOYMENT

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The Greening of Film Making: From Coast toCoastBy Steve CohenDecember 10, 2008 | 2:36 p.m

While New York often looks to

California for innovative,

environmental ideas, the

movie-making business that is

centered in Southern

California is not known for

being frugal or conscious of

resource constraints. The

creative process dominates,

and entertainment is known

for excess. "A lot of waste

takes place on production

sites," said Zahava Stroud, President and Co-Founder of iHollywood Forum, an

industry group working to motivate the public to act more sustainably. The forum

recently hosted Hollywood Goes Green, a conference to examine environmental

issues facing the entertainment industry.

In this tough economic climate, the event was marketed as a way for senior media

executives to operate with greater efficiency - and lower costs. That involves

collaboration between business operations and technological solutions, such

energy-saving server farms, video conferencing, which many companies are

offering as an alternative to travel, and the use of electric cars or trucks that run on

biodiesel, Stroud said.

According to the Southern California

Environmental Report Card, a 2006 reported

prepared by UCLA's Institute of the Environment,

California's film and television industry accounts

for roughly 8.4 million metric tons of

carbon-dioxide equivalent, and its greenhouse gas emissions in Los Angeles are

higher than the apparel, hotel and semiconductor sectors. Of course, Los Angeles is

home to Hollywood, but the industry still relies heavily on transportation and

energy consumption in its global operations.

After Al Gore released his global warming thriller An Inconvenient Truth, going


+Enlargeflickr via wwward0



More Columns >> green became the fashion for the stars in front of the camera, but Hollywood's

behind the scenes players have been slower to embrace sustainability. One notable

change occurred with the production of The Day After Tomorrow, a film about

abrupt climate changes associated with global warming. As a promise not to

contribute to that phenomenon, the director paid $200,000 to offset the carbon

dioxide emissions created by the film's production.

Today's frugal industry figures may be less likely to fork over large sums of cash for

environmentalism, so this year's iHollywood summit tackled innovative,

cost-effective ways the industry can reduce waste during and after film production.

"Everybody wants to save money in this climate," Stroud said, noting that people

are less willing to invest in new, innovative technology when facing economic

constraints. The goal is to promote the "tried and true" benefits that come with

using environmentally friendly technology.

Central to that mission are "process" improvements during film development,

production and distribution. According to Lauren Selman, chief executive of Reel

Green Media, a consultant that helps movie and television sets operate more

ecologically, studio lots have become more green, but fuel and energy consumption

and waste generation on site are still issues that need tackling. Food is also central

to the issue of excess, and iHollywood currently is working with the Los Angeles

Food Bank to get leftover food out to the homeless rather than send it to landfills.

"Hollywood is known for its waste and extravagance, and we're trying to change

that image," Stroud said.

Also at work is the Environmental Media Association, whose members include Ed

Begley Jr., Darryl Hannah, Norman Lear and Lara Dern. Leonardo DiCaprio,

whose new eco-friendly apartment at RiverHouse on the Hudson has gold

LEED-certification, is a board member of national environmental organization

Global Green and currently is producing the Discovery Channel series Eco-Town.

"We believe that Hollywood can use its influence to raise environmental

awareness, activate consumers to protect the environment, and incorporate

eco-friendly practices in our daily operations," Beth Colleton, vice president of

NBC Universal's "Green Is Universal" initiative, said in the run-up to the

iHollywood event. Films and shows can include environmental messages, she

noted, but people outside the industry also can create and deliver "green" messages

through My Space and You Tube.

On the east coast, New York too has taken steps to promote eco-friendly

entertainment. In mid-November Mayor Bloomberg teamed up with Green is

Universal President Lauren Zalaznick for a "Green Screens" electronics recycling

drive. Zalaznick explained her company's commitment to green entertainment in a

press release from the Mayor's Office: "Green Screens is yet one more example of

New York City's continued commitment to becoming an even more sustainable

City. We encourage New Yorkers to take the opportunity to learn more about the

simple steps they can take everyday to live a greener lifestyle." Green is

Universal aims to bring an environmental perspective to its networks, platforms

and audiences by spreading information about how viewers can "green" their

lifestyles. The New York City Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting also

provides environmentally friendly information on how New York City

productions can save on energy and production costs.


The media can improve its business and profit performance by reducing waste.

However, the obvious and more important impact of the media is as a role model.

People pay attention to what celebrities do and the cause of environmental

sustainability benefits from the free media that famous people generate. The

greening of the film industry legitimizes the sustainability issue and makes it more

mainstream. When the average person sees that "important" and "famous" people

care about something, they start to wonder if they should care too. Some of our

more thoughtful film stars understand the impact of their fame and are eager to

use that impact to do good.

MORE: ENERGY EFFICIENCY | ENTERTAINMENT | GREEN | HOLLYWOOD | PRODUCTION | STEVE COHENS BLOG |WASTE


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Energy Efficiency and Public PolicyBy Steve CohenDecember 15, 2008 | 11:27 a.m.

In early December I moderated a panel discussion at Columbia University titled

"Energy Efficiency: What Really Works." The panel featured five terrific

experts on this issue: Bridgett Neely, Vice President of Energy Efficiency at New

York City's Economic Development Corporation; Lloyd Kass, Director of the

Energy Department at the New York City Housing Authority; Jay Bhalla, President

of Willdan Energy Corporation (aka, Intergy); Luke Falk, Project Manager for the

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's (NYSERDA) New

York City office; and Peter Meloro, Section Manager of the Energy Efficiency

Programs Department at Con Ed. Columbia graduate student, Sara Schonhardt, a

research assistant at Columbia's Earth Institute, summarized the discussion on the

Institute's website.

While it is true we will not solve the energy or climate crisis by efficiency alone, it is

equally true that our wasteful and almost mindless use of energy is part of the

problem. These experts made a number of practical points about how to make

better use of energy:

Willdan Energy Corporation's Jay Bhalla focused on

the energy wasted in computer data centers. Bhalla

and his colleagues currently are working with

NYSERDA to help make Mt Sinai Hospital's data

centers more efficient. Bhalla also

mentioned that hotels in Europe

and Asia routinely shut off room

lights and wondered why US

hotels did not do the same.

After telling us that his parents home in Florida uses

more electricity in one day than he uses in his NYC

apartment in one month, NYSERDA's Luke Falk

observed that the "Smart Cable" box that allows you




More Columns >>to record TV when you are not at home, uses as much

energy as your refrigerator.

Lloyd Kass discussed the incredible inefficiency of

old hot water heaters and noted how important

capital improvements can be to increasing the energy

efficiency of older buildings.

Bridgett Neely discussed the difficulty of controlling

energy use when the people who use a building do

not see their energy costs charged directly and

instead find them reflected alongside many other

costs in their lease.

Peter Molero focused on the potential savings from

more efficient light bulbs.

It was an interesting discussion, and reflecting on it, I was struck by the

combination of factors that cause us to waste energy. Some of the causes of energy

waste are technological - many of the tools of modern life require energy. Some are

economic - we know that if we could afford to buy insulated windows, new air

conditioners or more efficient water heaters, we could save money in the long run.

In today's financial crisis, we don't have the capital to invest in saving energy. If we

had the capital, the return from that investment might not be as favorable as other

investments. Some of the causes of energy waste are simply habit. We are so used

to limitless, cheap energy that we can't be bothered to be efficient.

Our goal should be to use less and less energy per dollar of gross domestic product

(GDP). By definition, increased efficiency will increase our standard of living. Our

other energy goals must be to reduce the cost and environmental impact of energy

use.

To achieve all of these goals, we need to use public policy to motivate and inspire

socially beneficial private behavior. The tax code can be used to make it easier and

more profitable to invest capital in energy efficient technologies and infrastructure.

The government must fund the basic science and applied engineering needed to

improve energy efficiency and renewable energy. As both Barack Obama and Mike

Bloomberg have indicated, government must directly provide leadership by

improving the performance of its own buildings and vehicles.

We know this can work. Public policy can influence private behavior. Take the

example of mass transit in New York City. Twenty years of investment in the city's

mass transit system has resulted in people substituting mass transit for the

automobile. As William Neuman reported recently in the New York Times,

"New York City grew, but traffic didn't." According to Neuman:

"As the city's economy soared and its population grew from 2003 through 2007,

something unusual was happening on the streets and in the subway tunnels. All

those tens of thousands of new jobs and residents meant that more people were

moving around the city, going to work, going shopping, visiting friends. And yet,

according to a new city study, the volume of traffic on the streets and highways


remained largely unchanged, in fact declining slightly. Instead, virtually the entire

increase in New Yorkers' means of transportation during those robust years

occurred in mass transit, with a surge in subway, bus and commuter rail riders."

This growth was a direct result of public investment and a policy of encouraging

the use of mass transit. Now we are in danger of reversing that progress. Raising

fares and disinvesting in mass transit will increase auto traffic once the economy

rebounds.

The severe recession we are now dealing with poses real challenges to the leaders

of our government and of all of our major public, private and non-profit

institutions. Already pressure is building to view capital investment in energy

efficiency as a luxury. It is not - it is a necessity. Some of the practices we need to

adopt come at little or no cost: Turning off a light switch or shutting down a

computer or a cable box is cost free. But many of the steps we need to take will cost

money - even if those steps will save money in the long run. This is the moment

when we will learn if America is capable of taking the long view and doing what is

right, even if it is not easy. This is the moment when we will learn if our new

leaders in Washington will live up to their promise and fulfill their "green"

promises.

MORE: POLITICS | ENERGY EFFICIENCY | PUBLIC INVESTMENT | PUBLIC POLICY | SAVINGS | STEVE COHENSBLOG


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Food and the Holidays: Feast and FamineBy Steve CohenDecember 19, 2008 | 4:42 p.m

As President-Elect Obama

focuses his transition team on

a green stimulus plan, here in

New York, Governor Patterson

is also proposing public

policies that serve multiple

purposes. While in

Washington, they are able to

print money and run a deficit,

at the state and local level we

have to pay as we go. In

Washington they make plans

to spend money, in New York

we need to make plans to raise

new funds. Patterson has

combined a proposal to generate revenue with a public policy designed to reduce

obesity.

In some ways, Patterson is following the lead of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

Mayor Bloomberg has pledged to make New York City a healthier place to live.

That campaign promise started with controls on smoking and moved to a battle

against calories, trans-fat and sodium levels in packaged food. Now Governor

Paterson has proposed an 18 percent "obesity tax"

that would apply to all non-diet sodas and fruit

juices in an effort to raise money for state health

programs.

According to official projections, the tax would

raise $404 million in its first fiscal year starting in

April, but Paterson says ultimately the tax is more

health related. At first glance it fits in well with

Mayor Bloomberg's attempts to make healthier

food more available and more affordable for people

living in New York City's low-income

neighborhoods.

Many people in Harlem, the South Bronx and


+EnlargeFlickr via Andrea Fregnani



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the EnvironmentCentral Brooklyn buy their food at bodegas, where

healthy choices are often unavailable. Only one in four bodegas in East Harlem

sells apples, oranges, and bananas, while leafy green vegetables are available in

only four percent of East Harlem bodegas and two percent of Central Harlem

stores, according to a 2004 community health survey by the New York City Health

Department. About 20% of New Yorkers in these neighborhoods reported that they

ate no fruits or vegetables the previous day.

To improve access to healthier food and stem diet-related epidemics such as

diabetes and obesity, the Bloomberg administration in 2006 launched a healthy

bodegas initiative to make fruits, vegetables and low-fat milk more available in

Harlem, the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn.

The challenge, however, is not just about making good food accessible, but about

getting people to eat healthy food once it is available to them. Too often healthy

options are priced above what average people can afford. It's also true that people

don't always know what to eat and often need information on the benefits of eating

fruits and vegetables eat correctly. "We need to provide support to families making

difficult choices between paying their bills and putting food on the table," said Ben

Thomases, New York City's Food Policy Coordinator. "It is not enough to give them

calories. We need to give them balanced nutrition." As convener of the Food Policy

Taskforce, Thomases coordinates the efforts of City agencies to improve access to

healthy food.

One such initiative is the United Food and Commercial Worker's Union's Building

Blocks Project, which works with food, health and nutritional advocates, as well as

Unions and supermarket owners to ensure that good food, good jobs and good

health are the basic building blocks of all communities. Patrick Purcell, Director of

Special Projects, observes that rising food prices aren't the only problem facing

New York's low-income communities: "We simply don't put enough emphasis on

people being able to have good wages to buy food."

Will a tax be enough of a disincentive to get people to stop chugging back empty

calories or consuming too much sugar? According to the Building Blocks Project's

Food Policy Principles, "Healthy communities require a variety of purchasing

options including: farmers markets, community gardens, urban agriculture, food

co-ops and supermarkets. These entities must work together with city and state

officials to ensure a balanced range of food sources."

Even if money from the tax is put toward health programs, New Yorkers still face

constraints in actually purchasing food. And that raises another critical issue-

hunger, a topic we will discuss in an upcoming post. While eating the wrong food

is certainly a problem, having no food to eat is a much worse problem. As many of

us gather for holiday feasts and try to control our diets, let's remember to think

about the more than one billion people around the world who do not have enough

to eat. Hunger is a fact of life throughout the world, and its presence is a great

sadness and a moral outrage. The moral horror of hunger in the United States is

compounded by both the waste of food and overconsumption so typical of the

American lifestyle. This is a holiday season that is notable for a growing sense of

fear and insecurity. Still, those of us with full refrigerators and warm homes need

to remember those without and open our hearts and wallets to them.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | BUILDING BLOCK PROJECT | CALORIES | DAVID PATERSON | GREEN | HEALTHYBODEGA INITIATIVE | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | OBESITY TAX | STEVE COHENS BLOG | UNITED FOOD ANDCOMMERICIAL WORKER UNION

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Priming the Economic Pump in 2009: A Users ManualBy Steve CohenDecember 26, 2008 | 10:54 a.m.

As 2008 comes to a close, it

really has been the best and

worst of years. The economy,

the continuing carnage in Iraq,

the persistence of extreme

poverty and the steady

destruction of the planet are

certainly on the negative side

of the annual ledger. But, as

we look toward 2009 there is

reason to be hopeful. At the

center of this hope, perhaps

already looming larger than

life, is our soon to be President

Barak Obama.

In 2008, the issue of global sustainability achieved a permanent place on the

American public policy agenda. Moreover, it looks like the economic revival that is

being planned by the new Administration will focus on green initiatives. There are

a number of factors that must be considered as we design this economic stimulus.

Tom Friedman hit some of the key points in one of his typically on-target pieces in

the New York Times:

"...we don't just need a bailout. We need a reboot...

But we must make certain that every bailout dollar,

which we're borrowing from our kids' future, is

spent wisely. It has to go into training teachers,

educating scientists and engineers, paying for

research and building the most

productivity-enhancing infrastructure - without

building white elephants. Generally, I'd like to see

fewer government dollars shoveled out and more

creative tax incentives to stimulate the private

sector to catalyze new industries and new markets.

If we allow this money to be spent on pork, it will


+EnlargeFlickr via Nrbelex





be the end of us."

However, as my friend, former Professor and

former boss Dr. Marc Tipermas observed to me recently, there is another danger

that we will need to pay attention to: With state tax receipts in free fall due to the

shrinking economy, there is a real danger that the infrastructure grants being

promised might end up simply being grabbed by state governments to close their

deficits. Both California and New York are facing huge fiscal crises. Both are calling

for a federal bailout. On December 22, a letter was sent to the Congressional

leadership from the United States Conference of Mayors, National League of Cities,

National Association of Counties, Association of Metropolitan Planning

Organizations, National Association of Regional Councils, National Association of

Development Organizations, American Planning Association and the American

Public Works Association stating:

"On behalf of the nation's local elected officials, we are writing to express our

support for economic recovery highway funding to flow quickly and directly to

existing recipients: state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning

organizations. This is accomplished by directing funds to the Surface

Transportation Program (STP)."

The letter to Congress then gets to the heart of the issue:

"Our recommendation does not take funding away from the states. Using STP

means that, in addition to a guaranteed share of STP funds reserved for states,

local areas also receive a share of funds. This guarantees accountability given

current requirements set forth in the federal law. Without STP allocation, metro

areas and rural communities have no assurances that they will actually get any

funds"

There are four great dangers to the trillion dollar federal stimulus package that we

will certainly see early in 2009:

It could be spent on the wrong projects as Tom

Friedman fears.

It could end up being spent to close budget gaps at

the state level, and doesn't get used to stimulate the

economy at all.

In our haste to get this money into the economy

financial controls will be sacrificed and large

amounts of money will be stolen or misused. (We saw

this with the no-bid contracts during the early days

of the War in Iraq.)

All of the above-- resulting in a huge, inefficient

program that not only fails to stimulate the economy,

but actually hastens our decline.

Despite the dangers that I see, I think that a well designed stimulus package could


actually help bring the United States economy back on track. The fact is, we have

under-invested in public goods, over-consumed private goods and failed to save

the capital needed to invest in the future. A generation of anti-government and

anti-tax rhetoric, matched with our blind love affair with free and un-policed

markets has landed us in the current economic crisis. The way out of this mess

stretches before us, but it is complicated and could easily be disrupted by greed,

corruption, narrow politics and idiotic ideology.

The key to an effective stimulus is that the money must get into the economy as

soon as possible. It must be spent quickly on projects that are already underway.

While roads are not typically thought of as "green projects", they are in need of

constant repair and many repair projects are being held up due to inadequate

funding. They can help stimulate the economy by re-building our roads and

bridges. This will create construction jobs now and make our economy more

efficient by moving people and goods more effectively on our roads. In order to

restore the economy quickly some of the projects must be those that can be

ramped up as quickly as possible, not necessarily those that deliver the most

sustainable result per dollar invested. The Act does allow for funds to be spent on

mass transit and bus terminal projects and interestingly, the most recent revisions

to the Surface Transportation Program allow the funds to be used for:

"Environmental restoration and pollution abatement... [and] control of terrestrial

and aquatic noxious weeds and establishment of native species" related to

transportation projects. If state and local governments have these environmental

restoration projects ready to go, then they should be funded first.

In New York City, some of these transportation funds could be spent on

accelerating the rate of construction on the 2nd Avenue Subway and buying new

busses, trains and subway cars to increase the quantity and quality of our mass

transit. The Moynihan Station project rebuilding Penn Station is also a worthy

project. New York could also use federal money to rebuild and restore some of our

roads and bridges.

While some major infrastructure projects will develop too slowly to stimulate the

economy, we will need to find a way to finance longer term projects in the future.

Airports, intra-city bullet trains, water and power distribution and modern secure

ports are among the long term projects that should be funded. Perhaps a carbon

tax or at a minimum a larger gasoline tax could be used to fund longer term

projects. I know that polling always shows gasoline taxes to be wildly unpopular,

but in about 18 months when we wake up and start looking at the deficit numbers

we are generating, we will need new revenues and a gasoline tax ought to be part of

the mix.

As an educator, I tend to think of education funding as a type of expenditure that

brings multiple, long-term pay off. While I'm sure some of my view is simply

self-interested lobbying, there is a strong case to be made for funding education

and research in science and technology. One of my jobs at Columbia University is

that I serve as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Earth

Institute. The Earth Institute is a university-wide organization at Columbia that

brings together scholars, students and practitioners of sustainability from public

policy, engineering, environmental science, ecology, public health, law, education

and a variety of other fields. We employ over 600 people directly and work with

close to 1,000 scholars and at least as many students. Most of the environmental

scientists working at the Earth Institute work at our Lamont-Doherty campus,

located 30 miles north of the city in Palisades, New York. To keep their labs


functioning, many of these scientists are in a constant competition for government

and private grants to support their work.

The process of competing for science grants is a good one, requiring that our

scholars submit their ideas to their peers for review and comment. However, in

recent years the amount of funding for science has not kept up with needs. The

problem with this funding process is that our scientists are spending more and

more time writing proposals and less and less time in their laboratories. By

increasing the amount of funds we spend on scientific research, we can continue

the peer review process, but restore the balance between time spent on fundraising

and time spent on research.

I think that one way to quickly spend "pump priming" money would be for the

federal government to rapidly increase funds for basic and applied research and

student scholarships in sustainability science, management and engineering. There

are a range of issues that we need to learn more about: Solar cells and batteries,

more efficient energy transmission and use, solid and toxic waste management and

clean-up, food production, water supply and sewage treatment. The list could go

on, but this is an opportunity to steer higher education in the direction of

sustainability studies.

The financial crisis creates an opportunity to reshape the way we do business.

While the priority must be to avoid a deeper recession and restore confidence in

the future, we should be smart enough to do this in a way that takes the first steps

toward a more sustainable American economy. While we look to the new team in

Washington for leadership, resources and hope, let's also look closer to home for

innovation, inspiration and teamwork. Yes we can...

MORE: BAILOUT | BARACK OBAMA | DEFICIT | EARTH INSTITUTE | FEDERAL STIMULUS PACKAGE | GREEN |LAMONT-DOHERTY | PUMP PRIMING | SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH | STEVE COHENS BLOG | TRANSIT SYSTEMS


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In Support of the Obama Stimulus PlanBy Steve CohenJanuary 9, 2009 | 1:35 p.m

The Administration's stimulus

plan is now available for

review and I urge you to read

it yourself and not simply

listen to media-tilted or

politically biased views of the

plan. You can find it at:

http://change.gov/agenda/economy_agenda/ . All the predictable

ideological voices in Congress and the media have started to weigh in with their

short sighted and narrow views of what needs to happen. Some of this is not about

saving the economy, but is designed to reduce the new President's political clout

before he even takes office. It's amazing. The house is burning down and these

folks are fighting over the size of the hose we need to put out the fire.

For the stimulus to work it has to be decisive, dramatic, coherent and quick. The

psychology of recovery is that people have to

believe that if they don't jump back into the

economy, it could take off without them. An

incremental, slowly releasing, partial and

incoherent stimulus won't stimulate. Ask Secretary

Paulson- he's managed to spend $350 billion and

his biggest accomplishment has been to avoid a

complete collapse.

In Friday's New York Times, Peter Baker and David N. Herszenhorn wrote

that:

"...the broad support he [Obama] has enjoyed so far for the basic concept is now

being tested as the specifics become clearer. While conservatives criticize the high





More Columns >> spending, and moderate Democrats express concern about the swelling deficit,

liberals are pushing for even more money devoted to social programs,

alternative-energy development and road, bridge and school construction."

In case no one's noticed, this is a national emergency and no time to roll out the

usual suspects. The economy is suffering a deep crisis of confidence and it is going

to take a lot of cash in a hurry to get it moving again. While no one will agree with

every element of the plan, and some may say it's too little, too expensive or not fair

enough-come on folks! Let's get this show on the road. Try this, and then adjust it

once we see what's working.

The plan has a number of important provisions, and should be read in full, but let

me note the plan's elements that are squarely on the sustainability agenda:

"Save one million jobs through immediate

investments to rebuild America's roads and

bridges and repair our schools: ...make $25

billion immediately available in a Jobs and Growth

Fund to help ensure that in-progress and fast-tracked

infrastructure projects are not sidelined, and to

ensure that schools can meet their energy costs and

undertake key repairs starting this fall.

Partner with America's automakers to help

save jobs and ensure that the next generation

of clean vehicles is built in the United States:

... [provide]$50 billion in loan guarantees to help the

auto industry retool, develop new battery

technologies and produce the next generation of fuel

efficient cars here in America.

Invest in our next generation innovators and

job creators: ...create an Advanced Manufacturing

Fund to identify and invest in the most compelling

advanced manufacturing strategies. .

Double funding for the manufacturing

extension partnership: ... [work] with

manufacturers across the country to improve

efficiency, implement new technology and strengthen

company growth.

Invest in a clean energy economy and create 5

million new green jobs: ... invest $150 billion


over 10 years to advance the next generation of

biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the

commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote

development of commercial scale renewable energy,

invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin

transition to a new digital electricity grid.

Create new job training programs for clean

technologies: ... increase funding for federal

workforce training programs and direct these

programs to incorporate green technologies training,

such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization

training, into their efforts to help Americans find and

retain stable, high-paying jobs.

Boost the renewable energy sector and create

new jobs: ...create new federal policies, and expand

existing ones, that have been proven to create new

American jobs.

...create a federal Renewable

Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will

require 25 percent of American

electricity be derived from

renewable sources by 2025, which

has the potential to create

hundreds of thousands of new

jobs

...extend the Production Tax

Credit, a credit used successfully

by American farmers and

investors to increase renewable


energy production and create new

local jobs.Create a National Infrastructure

Reinvestment Bank: ...creating a National

Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and

enhance, not supplant, existing federal

transportation investments. This independent entity

will be directed to invest in our nation's most

challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The

Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60

billion over 10 years, to provide financing to

transportation infrastructure projects across the

nation. These projects will directly and indirectly

create up to two million new jobs and stimulate

approximately $35 billion per year in new economic

activity.

.Invest in the sciences: ...doubling federal funding

for basic research and changing the posture of our

federal government from being one of the most

anti-science administrations in American history to

one that embraces science and technology.

Make the Research and Development Tax

Credit permanent: ...make the Research and

Development tax credit permanent so that firms can

rely on it when making decisions to invest in

domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes."

If enacted, the impact of this plan could be transformative. For the past decade, the

innovation, energy and momentum of the emerging green economy has been

thwarted by an Administration dominated by the interests of the oil business and

the now discredited financial industry. Environmental sustainability was a public

relations catch phrase rather than an expression of the nation's core economic

strategy. If these proposed programs are made law and effectively managed, they

could stimulate unprecedented creativity and investment in a green economy.

If the economy wasn't in free fall there would be time to fine tune these programs

and start them gradually. Unfortunately, we are in a crisis. Congress needs to get

moving with the same sense of urgency we feel outside the beltway. The new


Administration needs our support, and our economy needs a strong dose of

adrenalin in a hurry. Come on Congress, show a little leadership and enact this

stimulus package right away-if not sooner.

This crisis is both a test and an opportunity. Can we respond to a crisis of

confidence that is still gathering momentum? A weak economy will harm the

people at the bottom of the economic ladder. It will make it more difficult for

young people to begin their careers and will cause retirees to suffer as their life

savings evaporate. On the other hand, it also gives us a chance to steer the

investment we are about to make, toward a more sustainable economy. The risk

and the opportunity are both great. Our new President has clearly articulated his

understanding of this crisis- and the potential opportunity it presents. It's time for

Congress to step up and do the same.

MORE: ADVANCE MANUFACTURING FUND | AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY | CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES | CLEANVEHICLES | ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN | GREEN | GREEN JOBS | JOB GROWTH FUND | NATIONALINFRASTRUCTURE REINVESTMENT BANK | RENEWABLE ENERGY SECTOR | RESERACH & DEVELOPMENT TAXCREDIT | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Miracle on the Hudson: How About a Miracle on the Potomac Too?By Steve CohenJanuary 16, 2009 | 4:56 p.m

In this season of hope and

frigid fear, the other day on

the Hudson River we saw

another reason for optimism.

When faced with imminent

danger, we saw the best in

what we all can do together. A

jetliner is in trouble and the

pilot skillfully steers away

from the most populated strip

of land in America, and brings

his passengers and crew to safety. Ferry captains, firefighters, police, the Coast

Guard and many others head toward danger to save people. Ordinary people on

the jet and on the ferries lend a helping hand and no one dies.

Let's hope this is a metaphor for our country and our world. Working together, we

can help each other and survive this season to live and thrive in the next one.

Spring will surely follow this bleak winter. Let's celebrate the competence and

courage of pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, a name we will all come to know: The

captain who truly was the last to leave his sinking craft. But let's also celebrate this

post 9-11 mantra that tells us we are all in this together. We are all interdependent

and all part of the same community. As ecologist Barry Commoner said over four

decades ago- everything is connected to everything

else.

What does that mean? Next week we inaugurate a

new President, who is as sophisticated and self

aware as any President we have ever had. I don't

think it's wishful thinking to believe that he

understands both the peril in the modern world

and the opportunities that abound. We need to

turn this big boat around and become a force for

good on this planet. I recognize that we have

enemies throughout the world, but bombing them

into submission does not really make them submit.







It simply makes them hate us more.

We need to change the rules of the game. Perhaps

our competition with China is a good example. In the days when we called

mainland China "Red China", we imagined they would use force to push the rest of

Asia into their orbit. Instead, they learned to exercise power through economic

rather than military strength. They never invaded San Francisco, but they

manufacture a lot of the stuff we use and we owe them a small fortune.

A great political scientist, E.E. Schattschneider once wrote about what he called the

"contagiousness of conflict". In his classic book, The Semisovereign People, he

starts with a story that summarizes his main point: It is 1943 and there is a fight in

a Harlem Hotel lobby between an African American soldier and a white policeman.

Before long crowds are assembling at the hotel, the hospital and police station,

millions of dollars of damage takes place and hundreds are injured. The cop and

the solider had nothing to do with the riot, but it spread without reason. Conflict

spreads due to unreasoned emotion. However, the contagiousness of conflict can

also be part of someone's explicit strategy. We see this in a typical barroom brawl.

One guy is pummeling another. A crowd is drawn by the fight and the guy losing

starts to implore the crowd to help him. The bystanders get involved and the loser

stops losing. When you are losing a fight, a typical strategy is to expand the scope

of conflict and try to change the rules of the game. As Schattschneider wrote: "The

outcome of every conflict is determined by the extent to which the audience

becomes involved in it. That is, the outcome of all conflict is determined by the

scope of its contagion." (p.2) However, as modern terrorism has taught us, it is not

simply a case of expanding the scope of conflict, but changing the rules of the

game.

In the modern version of Schattschneider's fist fight in Harlem, the guy losing

doesn't just scream for help, he takes out a mobile rocket launcher and sends a

missile into the other guy's apartment. Or even worse, if that's possible, the loser

is so desperate and demented that he sends a child to a public place with a bomb in

his backpack. This is the unavoidable and even unspeakable peril of the modern

world. The terrorists try to change the rules of competition in more destructive

directions and we need to be smart enough to change the rules in a different

direction. A descending spiral of violence makes us all losers. An ascending path of

sustainable commerce makes us all winners.

It can be done. We see the beauty of the response to the jet liner that landed on the

Hudson. We see election evening in Grant Park Chicago and all over America. We

see the possibility of situations where everyone wins. That is the nature of peace.

All of us share a common humanity. As John Kennedy once said, "our most basic

common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air.

We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

The most common human need is to live in a community, free from want, secure to

relate to family and friends. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen many wars

fought over issues of power and competing views of god and ethics. The technology

of destruction has advanced more rapidly than the technology of defense. For that

reason the key to our survival is to move this competition to other arenas. We

know that this will not be easy, since the losers will always try to change the rules

of the game. The lesson is to not let losers stay lost. The losers in World War II, are

major winners today. Japan, Germany and Italy are wealthy, peaceful societies.

Our new President and his team must learn to pilot like Chesley B. Sullenberger III

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The Pageant of Democracy ContinuesBy Steve CohenJanuary 21, 2009 | 10:21 a.m.

Inauguration day, 2009 was a

thrilling affirmation of the

United States and the most

hopeful day I can remember.

The American President is

both our head of government

and our head of state. He is

both prime minister and king.

And before about two million

people, and millions more on

TV and the web, President

Barack Obama, again demonstrated the talent to masterfully fulfill both of these

roles.

From my perspective it was a wonderful speech. I felt the entire country exhale

and breathe a sigh of relief. Here was a voice that over these past two years many

of us had come to count on; possessed by a man with near perfect political pitch.

The main message was responsibility and stewardship. He called on all of us to

leave behind the childish pettiness of partisan politics and remember that we are a

unique community, formed from every part of the planet. As technology shrinks

the size of our world and creates a global, interconnected economy and society, he

noted that America's diversity got us there first and we have a responsibility to

lead.

Of course as in any piece of great pubic oratory

there was something for everyone. For me, he said:

"...each day brings further

evidence that the ways we use

energy strengthen our

adversaries and threaten our

planet.

"Our capacity remains





More Columns >> the Environment

undiminished. But our time of

standing pat, of protecting

narrow interests and putting off

unpleasant decisions - that time

has surely passed. Starting

today, we must pick ourselves

up, dust ourselves off, and begin

again the work of remaking

America."

"We will restore science to its rightful place, and

wield technology's wonders to raise health care's

quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun

and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run

our factories. And we will transform our schools and

colleges and universities to meet the demands of a

new age. All this we can do. All this we will do."

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground

has shifted beneath them- that the stale political

arguments that have consumed us for so long no

longer apply. The question we ask today is not

whether our government is too big or too small, but

whether it works"

And finally:

"We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn

from every end of this Earth; and because we have

tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation,

and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and

more united, we cannot help but believe that the old

hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe

shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller,

our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that

America must play its role in ushering in a new era of

peace."

I was not the only one thrilled by President Obama's message, I heard


Conservative pundit, Pat Buchanan, laud our new President in his call for a return

to: "...those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work,

courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things

are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress

throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths."

Our new President makes you want to help him and wish him well. I have never

seen anything like the flood of support and good will that he has enjoyed these last

few days. It was amazing to see and could not be better timed.

Of course inauguration day is more than words, it is also symbols. The most

important of these symbols is the peaceful transfer of power represented by past

Presidents and Vice Presidents joining together and the great tradition of the

outgoing President seated on the podium with the new President. The size of the

crowd on the Capital mall and at viewing parties from coast to coast was a thrilling

final act of this great pageant of democracy. On the Columbia campus, our

President, Lee Bollinger hosted thousands of students, faculty and neighbors in an

outdoor viewing of the ceremonies.

To inaugurate is to begin. It is more than a little scary to think of the challenges we

face. The sustainability of this fragile blue island in the vacuum of space, the

violence of the Mideast, the dire poverty in Africa and the economic crisis here at

home. The inauguration of this President was an event of enormous affirmation

and, one of unity and inclusion. President Obama referred to his own story and as

he often does, used it to demonstrate how much is possible here in America. In

concluding he observed that assuming the Presidency was "a man whose father

less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant". This is

the promise and potential of America. While watching the ceremony and listening

to Aretha sing at the start and Dr. King's colleague Rev. Joseph E. Lowery's

benediction at the ceremony's end, I felt like I was dreaming- or watching an

improbably sentimental and sappy movie.

But it all was real. Each of us now, in our own way must now participate in the

great national renewal that President Obama spoke of on the Capital steps.

January 20th was a very moving day that we will need to remember and draw on

during the difficult days that are surely ahead.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | ENERGY | GREEN | INAUGURATION | LEE BOLLINGER | PAT BUCHANAN | STEVECOHENS BLOG | STEWARDSHIP | TECHNOLOGY


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Understanding Public Opinion About the EnvironmentBy Steve CohenJanuary 25, 2009 | 10:51 p.m

On January 22, a piece in the

New York Times discussed

public opinion data on the

environment and global

warming and noted that

support for protecting the

environment was slipping in

U.S. public opinion polls.

According to Andrew C.

Revkin:

"The latest in an annual series

of polls from the Pew

Research Center on people's top priorities for their elected leaders shows that

America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global

warming.... According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its own,

ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. Here's the list from top to bottom, with the

economy listed as a top priority by 85 percent of those polled and global warming

30 percent: the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security, education,

energy, Medicare, health care, deficit reduction, health insurance,

helping the poor, crime, moral decline, military, tax cuts,

environment, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy, global warming.

On January 22, a piece in the New York Times

discussed public opinion data on the environment

and global warming and noted that support for

protecting the environment was slipping in U.S.

public opinion polls. According to Andrew C.

Revkin:

"The latest in an annual series of polls from the

Pew Research Center on people's top priorities for their elected leaders shows

that America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused

global warming.... According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its

own, ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. Here's the list from top to bottom,

with the economy listed as a top priority by 85 percent of those polled and global


+EnlargeFlickr via Tony the Misfit



More Columns >> warming 30 percent: the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security,

education, energy, Medicare, health care, deficit reduction, health

insurance, helping the poor, crime, moral decline, military, tax cuts,

environment, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy, global warming.

Although the more general issue of protecting the environment ranked higher than

climate (named by 41 percent of the poll subjects) that figure was 15 percentage

points lower than in the same poll a year ago."

The data reported here is accurate, but the data can be interpreted in several ways.

I think it is a mistake to assume that the public's support for protecting

the environment is declining. The reporter is drawing his conclusion from

Pew's own survey analysts, and there is no question that the urgency of

environmental issues has shifted due to the current economic crisis. However, we

need to look a little deeper to really understand what is happening here. Let's start

by looking at the question that was posed by the survey. It reads: " I'd like to

ask you some questions about priorities for President-elect Obama and the

Congress this year. As I read from a list, tell me if you think the item that I read

should be a top priority, , important but lower priority, not too important, or it

should not be done".

The overall finding of the Pew report is that people are much more focused on

domestic issues than foreign policy. This general concern for issues of immediate

impact may work against issues like the environment and global warming.

Accurate or not, many people do not see the environment as having a direct effect

on their daily lives. The study also reports, as you might expect, increased priority

placed on the economy. Survey researchers like to pose questions like this because

they encourage people to make tough choices and express priorities. This provides

a greater intensity of response than typical questions. However, this type of rating

question tends to understate the latent power of a political issue. These questions

are better at measuring intensity of feelings than the public's overall, considered

judgment of the issue's importance. Excellent social scientists such as the ones at

Pew know that public opinion is difficult to measure and use "multiple indicators"

to measure opinion from a variety of perspectives. For that reason, when you see a

piece of poll data it is important to ask: What opinion is being measured with this

question and why is this trend taking place?

For example, during the first two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency the

environmental issue kept rising in the polls. We saw the same phenomenon during

the most recent Bush Administration, once the public realized that Bush's "Clear

Skies" and "Healthy Forest" initiatives were public relations efforts to mask

anti-environmental policies. We have seen a gradual rise in support for

environmental issues over the past several years. However, once the public regains

confidence in the legitimacy of government's environmental programs, concern

over the urgency of environmental issues starts to drop. When President Reagan

brought back William Ruckelshaus as EPA Administrator in 1983, support for

environment in some public opinion polls began to drop. Some of the drop seen in

the recent Pew poll, may in fact reflect President Obama's name being used in the

question. People know that President Obama is pro-environment and the urgency

of the issue may have receded after November's election.

Public opinion on an issue's priority has at least two components to it: 1. How

important is the issue overall? 2. How confident am I in the work that government

is doing to solve the problem? If I have little confidence (as we all do today about

the economy) it becomes a mega-priority. If I feel that it's moving along OK, I may


not express a great a sense of urgency when responding to this question. In the

Pew survey, 83% of those responding still think the environment should be a top or

important priority. About 67% felt that way about global warming. While not as

highly rated as the economy, it is not a minor issue either.

We see a similar phenomenon on polling about crime. The overall issue remains

central to people's perceptions and lives- certainly here in New York City. But with

crime rates going down, people do not consider it an urgent issue and it does not

rate very high in local surveys of critical issues. That does not mean that people

want the police department's budget to be cut. All it would take is one crime wave

and the issue would jump to the top of the polls. People expect government to

protect them. They expect their streets to be safe, and they expect their air and

water to be clean. Remove that safety and you will discover the enormous latent

power of those issues.

There is another factor at work here which we could call a "crisis effect". Some of

the priority shuffling we see in the latest survey is undoubtedly a reflection of the

urgency of the economic crisis. When there is a crisis such as the economy or the

9-11 terrorist attack, all priorities are suddenly no longer equal. Crises tend to

crowd out other priorities. As important as the climate issue is to our long term

survival, the issue of jobs and the economy is so important, that we are willing to

hold off on those long term issues-for a short time-while we deal with the crisis.

This is a normal human response to emergencies- probably hard wired into our

genetic code-and one of the reasons we have survived so far. If I get a call that one

of my daughters is ill, and I need to take her to the hospital or doctor, as important

as my job is to me, I will drop everything at work and take care of that emergency.

When the emergency is over, I can return to "normal" priorities. As I've written

before, everyone of us has that image in our head (probably in black and white) of

unemployed folks on a bread line during the Great Depression. The fear of losing

the ability to provide for ourselves and our families is a powerful force that can

drive out our other concerns.

One of the problems with some environmental issues such as global warming is

that they do not pose the immediate threat people feel from other issues, like toxic

waste or "not-in-my -backyard" land use development. It does not have the

urgency that the wild beast at the cave entrance had for our ancestors. When we

feel an immediate crisis, our ability to deal with powerful long term threats is

reduced. That does not mean that we've forgotten about the long term threat. It

just means that in order to get to the long term, we need to survive over the short

term.

MORE: STYLE | BARACK OBAMA | CRIME | CRISIS EFFECT | DOMESTIC ISSUES | GEORGE W. BUSH | GREEN |HUMAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING | NOT IN MY BACK YARD | PEW RESEARCH CENTER | STEVE COHENSBLOG | THE GREAT DEPRESSION


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Building a Sustainable AutoBy Steve CohenJanuary 30, 2009 | 11:58 a.m.

The power of the American

Presidency to move the

environmental agenda was

never more apparent than

during President Obama's

recent directive to EPA to

reconsider California's request

to set tighter air emission and

fuel efficiency standards.

Under the Clean Air Act,

California has long had the

authority to exceed federal standards and typically it has made good use of this

power. What makes President Obama's directive even more important is that 13

states are joining California's effort to beat the federal government's auto emission

and energy standards. These 14 states have about half of the cars and light trucks

in the United States.

President Obama is also pushing the Department of Transportation to finally issue

regulations on fuel efficiency that were required in 2007 legislation. The Bush

Administration had delayed these rules in an effort to kill them. The reflexive

word out of Detroit is that these new regulations will simply exacerbate the

problems that the auto industry must face in it's struggle to survive. This is, of

course, more of the same nonsense that has

resulted in the demise of the American auto

industry. The temporary fix that SUV's brought to

the auto industry fooled them into thinking that

the old mantra: "mini-cars bring mini-profits",

would remain forever. Even though gas is cheaper

now then it was last summer, when people finally

make enough money to buy cars again, very few

will opt for gas guzzlers. The reason is that no one

knows when gas will go back to $4 or higher, and

the issue of environmental sustainability is

creeping into the American mindset.

President Obama and Governor Schwarzenegger

are doing Detroit a favor. The capital funds GM


+EnlargeFlickr via thingermejig



More Columns >> the Environmentand Chrysler have received to bail them out are

supposed to help them retool and make a more fuel efficient auto. With the

head-in-the-sand Bush era sputtering to an end, most people know that we need

more fuel efficient cars. Let's go ahead and build them. During World War II,

Detroit retooled from civilian to military production in a matter of months. This

time, they have until 2011 to develop a fuel efficient fleet. We may not be fighting

World War II, but we are in a battle for economic survival. Let's stop complaining

and get down to work. The future of the U.S. auto industry requires that we

quickly build a more fuel efficient auto fleet. In the long run we will need an

all-electric car and we'll also need an electrical power system that does not emit

carbon dioxide. American industry has an opportunity to get out front on this,

develop new technology and sell it to the world.

The other day, one of my students told me that I was either unrealistic or overly

optimistic if I thought that America could develop an electric car and a

renewable-based energy system. It's not that I am overly optimistic; it's that I do

not see any alternative. We need to develop a way to power our economy and

society without fossil fuels. Nuclear is too complicated and creates a toxic waste.

Oil and coal are hard to get, will eventually run out, and emit carbon dioxide. We

have built the American economy and our cities around the automobile. While we

need to add mass transit, this country will always require personal transportation.

Getting rid of autos would destroy our economy. Dismantling the modern economy

would create massive political instability and dangerous unrest. Reinventing our

energy system is the critical challenge of our time-and we have no choice-we must

do it. It turns out that Jimmy Carter was right in 1977 when he said that the energy

crisis was the moral equivalent of war

Pushing the auto industry to modernize is a critical piece to the American energy

puzzle. But it is just the first step. President Obama should be commended for

taking that first step, without waiting for new legislation and exercising the power

of the Presidency. It is important that American industry get the idea that the new

Administration is serious about building a green economy. Of course that means

the new administration must be serious about building a green economy. Lots of

people will say we can't afford sustainability or that it's a distraction from the real

work of economic recovery. They are wrong. Our economic and political well being

depends on our ability to develop an efficient, green economy. Sustainability is not

a luxury and a fuel efficient automobile is essential to our future economc growth.

MORE: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER | BARACK OBAMA | CALIFORNIA | CHRYSLER | CLEAN AIR ACT |DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION | DETROIT | ELECTRIC CARS | EPA | GM | GREEN | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Bringing Green Principles Into the American EconomyBy Steve CohenFebruary 2, 2009 | 1:09 p.m

Some of us believe

environmental sustainability

can be a central element of the

revival of the American

economy. Some think this idea

is mushy-headed, idealistic

nonsense that should be

rejected by hard-nosed

business leaders. Wal-Mart,

perhaps the best-known

example of a company that

has done well by doing good, provides evidence of how green business can lead to

greenbacks.

After the retail giant's reputation took a hit, first for not providing employees with

enough benefits and then from environmental groups that accused the corporation

of polluting, CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. set about transforming the company's image. His

mission: remake Wal-Mart into an environmentally conscious corporation.

Management decided to stock Wal-Mart shelves with energy efficient light bulbs,

concentrated liquid laundry detergent and other products labeled as sustainable.

New products involved less packaging, and the retailer's fleet of trucks now

operates with improved fuel efficiency thanks to new loading techniques that make

better use of space.

According to a January 24 article in the New

York Times, "Wal-Mart now saves $3.5 million a

year just by recycling loose plastic and selling it to

processors."

Wal-Mart's new ethos came out further in that

article, which included a quotation from Scott speaking in January to members of

the National Retail Federation: "As businesses, we have a responsibility to society

... Let me be clear about this point. There is no conflict between delivering value to

shareholders, and helping solve bigger societal problems."

Improving Wal-Mart's reputation has extended beyond its own profit margin. By





More Columns >> placing environmentally friendly products on its shelves over other, less

sustainable goods, it has pressured suppliers such as General Electric to rethink

their product lines too. "There was a time where people in business believed all

they had to do was run their business," The Times quoted former Wal-Mart CEO

David D. Glass as saying. "But it doesn't work that way anymore. There is an

accountability that goes way beyond that."

According to Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund,

"We need to recognize that there's more than one measure in the success of a

corporation." Also the author of a 1994 report criticizing Wal-Mart's

environmental efforts, Hamberg said a corporation must rate its operations along

three metrics: 1) financial success; 2) carbon and energy savings; and 3) the ability

to achieve social goals. "These multiple metrics make economic sense," he noted.

"The key is to take an integrated approach to changing the way we do business."

As for corporate concerns that selling long-lasting sustainable goods will reduce

revenues, Hamburg said in fact, Wal-Mart is likely to benefit from transitioning to

products that operate more efficiently. These goods allow Wal-Mart to grab a

larger part of the market share, while products that have less packaging take up

less shelf space, allowing retail stores to stock other goods in their place. Then

there are the cost savings. Customers may buy fewer light bulbs, but that means

they have more money in their pockets, and Hamburg says Wal-Mart is likely to

see those savings come back in other ways.

Companies such as McDonalds and PepsiCo also are adding sustainability

principles to their routine business operations. The Lenfest Center for Sustainable

Energy at Columbia University's Earth Institute has been helping Pepsi measure

and reduce its carbon footprint on products like Tropicana Orange Juice and

Gatorade.

While it's true some of this push toward environmentalism is clearly public

relations, many companies are starting to see resource conservation and waste

reduction as simply sound business practices.

In many respects, receptivity to these ideas goes back to the quality management

principles companies such as Wal-Mart, GE and many Japanese companies

adopted in the later part of the twentieth century. Sustainability is a natural

extension of that long-standing effort to reduce waste and rationalize production.

Total Quality Management and environmental sustainability share an abhorrence

of waste and overly short term perspectives in business and production.

Not only are major corporations using sustainability principles to revive their

bottom line, the new administration is hoping to use these ideas to revive

America's now dormant economy. As mentioned in an earlier piece, a number of

elements of the Obama administration's economic stimulus package would

facilitate the development of a green economy. The $819 billion stimulus package

passed by the House last Wednesday set aside $18.5 for energy efficiency and

renewable energy, including $2 billion for research and development, $6.2 billion

for building weatherization programs, $1 billion to support workers training

programs in green job generation. A focus on innovative, renewable technologies

appears in both the House and Senate bills, which could reach as high as $900

billion.

If you take even a middle-range perspective, it is obvious that an economy based

on less waste and more renewable resources will be more efficient. However, the


business world tends to operate on quarterly cycles and government typically

focuses on the next election. The "realists" that run our world may not be that

interested in the longer term focus sustainability management requires. When one

looks society-wide, over an extended period of time there is no trade off between

economic growth and environmental protection. However, a particular business at

a particular point of time may find that such a trade off is quite real. It is

government's job to change the incentive system - largely through tax deductions

and credits - so that businesses can make the investments needed to reduce waste

and consumption. Larger companies like GE, PepsiCo and Wal-Mart have the

resources to do this on their own, but many smaller companies and even smaller

local governments cannot do this without financial assistance. Public policy is

required to provide the means to move toward sustainability.

In the long run, we will only succeed if sustainability principles become the norm,

as routine as best accounting practices or the use of computers in the workplace. It

will simply take its place along side other best management practices and

principles. We'll know we're getting there when you start describing sustainability

principles to a manager and she says, "Oh, that's just the way we do business

around here. It's nothing special...."

MORE: CORPORATE GREENING | ECONOMY | GREEN | PEPSICO | STEVE COHENS BLOG | STIMULUS |WAL-MART


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President Obama has Already Redefined the Political CenterBy Steve CohenFebruary 9, 2009 | 2:31 p.m

It took less than a month for

the 24-7 news media and

political pundit class to pile on

President Obama and resume

their old habit of

underestimating him. "His

appointments were not

properly vetted". "The

stimulus package is a

pork-laden mishmash". "He's

too nice to the conservatives"

"He still hasn't gotten his kids

a dog". Through all of the

endless analysis our new

President maintains his

balance and seems to coolly rise above the fray. He seems so..... Presidential.....

For the cable news channels and the political websites, the prospect of an absence

of conflict and crisis must be terrifying. What happens if the Economic Depression

is avoided and all of these new programs result in an economic recovery in 2010?

People will stop tuning to the news media and start reading novels or something.

The absence of perspective and understanding is amazing. The Washington

insiders, as they always do, are complaining that

the new folks in the White House don't know how

to find the washroom yet. The national media

keeps reporting, as news, the fact the different

parts of Congress seem to disagree about the

stimulus package. Congress is supposed to

represent different perspectives. That's their job.

This is a big and diverse country, with many

different interests and points of view. To some

degree Congress mirrors the nation's diversity.

Then, at a certain point in the policy making

process, crunch time comes and someone must cut

a deal. While I worry that the situation could







become so toxic that no one will compromise, the

prospect of a Depression should be scary enough to

prod Congress into a deal.

I think it is important to understand what this new Administration has already

managed to do since January 20th. With a number of real and symbolic steps, they

have begun to redefine the political center in American politics. In the United

States, politics and especially Presidential politics is about defining the political

center. The stimulus package is a case in point. The Bush Administration approach

to the economic crisis was to define it as a crisis in the finance industry and to

enact a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. While Obama supported that step, and

will soon add to it, he also started to talk about the need for a more direct pump

priming stimulus that would cost about $800 billion. The Obama plan would

include: funds for state and local governments, extra funds for unemployed and

poor people, funds for infrastructure- especially the green variety- and tax cuts for

all but the wealthy. What is now being fought over in Congress? An $800 billion

stimulus package with all of the pieces that President Obama advocated. The fight

is about the relative size of the pieces that the Obama Administration defined.

That is the key idea to keep in mind here. The definition of political feasibility has

changed dramatically in the past month. In environment, in science, in foreign

policy and throughout the broad spectrum of public policy issues, the center has

shifted. States will be able to set more stringent auto emission and fuel economy

standards. Guantanamo will be closed. Our diplomats have resumed quiet

conversation with our enemies. Equal pay rights have been reinforced by new

federal legislation. Poor children will find their health care financed by a new

federal tax on cigarettes. The effort to transform our economy to a sustainable and

green economy has been tied to the effort to avoid an economic depression. These

are just the items that reach the media. Churning below the surface is over a

decade of deferred governance that began in earnest when articles of impeachment

were voted against Bill Clinton on December 19, 1998 and continued until January

20, 2009.

It is true that the new Administration has made mistakes. Who doesn't? In

baseball, a batter fails 7 of 10 times, hits 300 and gets into the Hall of Fame.

Obama is hitting well over 500 and should really not be underestimated. Last week

he met with relatives of American terrorist victims who were angry about the

closing of Guantanamo. President Obama assured them that closing this jail of ill

repute did not mean he was about to allow criminals loose on the streets of our

cities. In the NY Times on February 6, Jeff Zeleny reported on the impact of

this meeting on one of the participants:

"John Clodfelter of Mechanicsville, Va., whose son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole

bombing, said he came to the meeting with apprehension over the decision to close

the prison and the delay in prosecutions. But after listening to the president and

being assured that the terror suspects would not be released, Mr. Clodfelter said

his opinion changed. "I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you

can't help but believe in him," Mr. Clodfelter said on Friday evening. "He left me

with a very positive feeling that he's going to get this done right."

The tone in Washington is changing. The President invites his political opponents

to a Superbowl party instead demonizing them as unpatriotic or naive. There is an

effort to dial down the level of intensity and dial up the time devoted to thought

and reflection. This may make for less political theatre and may not be good for the


political media business, but it is a refreshing development. Still, the news media

shouldn't worry, they can always interview Dick Cheney if they want to inject a

little partisan contentiousness into the evening news.

The slow, steady, and yes un-dramatic events since January 20th need to be seen in

their entirety. A page has been turned. A new agenda and a new sensibility have

already been put in place. Without great fanfare, the definition of legitimate policy

prescriptions has changed. Not bad for about three weeks in the White House.MORE: BARACK OBAMA | BUSH ADMINISTRATION | CABLE NEWS CHANNEL | CONGRESS | DEPRESSION |GREEN | GUANTANAMO | NEW ADMINISTRATION | NEW AGENDA | NEWS MEDIA | OBAMA PLAN | POLITICALWEBSITES | STEVE COHENS BLOG | STIMULUS PACKAGE


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Toward a Clean Energy FutureBy Steve CohenFebruary 16, 2009 | 10:03 a.m.

In Sunday's New York Times,

the reporter, Melanie Warner,

(or her editor) poses the

question: "Is America ready

to give up coal? Describing

the situation, Warner writes

that:

"With concerns over

climate change

intensifying, electricity

generation from coal, once

reliably cheap, looks

increasingly expensive in the

face of the all-but-certain

prospect of regulations that would impose significant costs on companies that emit

large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

As a result, utilities' plans for new coal plants are being turned down left and right.

In the last two-and-a-half years, plans for 83 plants in the United States have

either been voluntarily withdrawn or denied permits by state regulators. The

roughly 600 coal-fired power plants in the United States are responsible for almost

one-third of the country's total carbon emissions, but they are distinctly at odds

with a growing outlook that embraces clean energy."

The Times piece goes on to discuss the expense of the technology to capture and

store carbon and the expense and unreliability of renewable sources of energy.

This is a worn out argument. The article also presents the usual environmental and

industry advocates arguing on each side of the issue. The Edison Electric Institute

can be relied on to argue that new technology will cost too much and threaten our

electric supply. I wonder what old Thomas Edison would say if he knew that his

name is now being used to oppose the development of new technology?

Why does this tired argument keep getting repeated? The cost figures on carbon

capture and storage are based on assumptions that cannot be tested. We don't

really know how much this will cost. The estimates that carbon capture and storage

will more than double the cost of coal fired power plants is clearly too high. Since it


+EnlargeFlickr via d70focus



More Columns >> hasn't been done, it's easy to see why investors would believe that the first ones will

be quite expensive. I'm sure that's true, but it's not really relevant. The private

sector should not and will not pay the cost of developing this technology.

Government will need to subsidize this until it becomes cost effective.

The debate on carbon dioxide regulation seems caught in the same rhetoric we saw

in the 1970's and 1980's over more conventional environmental regulation. There

was similar discussion about how arbitrary and sudden government regulation was

going to shut down American business. Anyone who actually observes regulation in

this country knows that the "business of America is business". Regulations are

implemented slowly, with negotiated schedules and great care. Businesses are

given plenty of time to clean up their act. Moreover, regulations and rules allow the

good guys to do the right thing and compete on a more level playing field. And

without environmental regulation there is no pressure to develop new and cheaper

technologies that produce without polluting.

As for the cost of renewable energy; solar power, wind power and battery storage

prices will also come down as the technology develops. Think of computers. The

computer I am writing this on sits on my lap and is more powerful than the million

dollar plus mainframes of the 1960's. As mass markets are developed and

technology is refined, prices come down and today's infeasible ideas become

tomorrow's everyday experiences.

How do we get this done? How do we go from here to there? In the case of

computers, a lot of the basic Research & Development came from the Defense

Department and NASA. Our rockets, missiles and space capsules needed smaller,

more powerful computers. And then there's the internet that was also developed by

government: Our military computers needed to communicate with each other. One

thing led to another and eventually we had an internet. Government paid the costs

of development and then it was turned over to the private sector and a new

industry was created.

Sometimes national security drives the development of technology- sometimes it is

public health. Cities like London developed sewers and indoor plumbing to prevent

disease. Cities like New York developed a hugely expensive water supply system

because local sources were polluted. I'm sure someone was saying: Do you know

how expensive this indoor plumbing will be? We will all go broke installing these

pipes and pumps everywhere!

More recently we had some of the same arguments raised against paying the cost

of installing air pollution devices on cars and power plants and against spending

billions of dollars on sewage treatment plants. We did all of that and the economy

continued to grow. In fact, the economic benefits of cleaner air and cleaner water

far outweighed the costs.

Here is the fundamental truth that it is time to face: Just as we needed to develop

new public health technologies to survive in cities when they went over a million in

population, we must now invest in world-scale technologies to survive on a planet

of seven billion people. The climate problem is the first planet-wide stress we know

about. Others will surely come. We need to learn how to develop and implement

the 21st century equivalent of indoor plumbing.

We are capable of making this transformation but it requires that we escape from

the environment- economic growth tradeoff paradigm we see on the front page of

the Sunday New York Times Business Section. We need to work on the push and


pull of carbon dioxide reduction. We need to regulate and set a cap on carbon

dioxide. This should be done with mandatory reduction targets, a tax on fossil

fuels and a trading system to allow the most efficient reductions possible. In

addition we need to spend money on the basic and applied technology of carbon

sequestration, renewable energy, energy transmission and energy storage. We

need cheaper and smaller solar receptors and cheaper and more efficient batteries.

Clean coal may be a fiction in 2009, but if we are to use coal for electricity, we must

develop better ways to mine and burn coal. As my Columbia colleague Klaus

Lackner eloquently argues, no matter how fast we develop renewable energy, we

will continue to use fossil fuels for many years. He estimates the costs of

sequestration will come down dramatically as technology and a mass market is

developed. The problem is developing the technology and mass market.

Government can and must stimulate the technology and market.

In the long run fossil fuels will be more expensive than other sources. Fossil fuels

are finite and must be mined from within the planet. They will get harder to mine

and scarcer and for those reasons will eventually be more expensive. We need to

accelerate the development of the new technology of energy. Let's end these 20th

century debates once and for all and get on with the job.MORE: CARBON CAPTURE | CARBON DIOXIDE REGULATION | CARBON EMISSIONS | CLEAN ENERGY | CLIMATECHANGE | COAL | ELECTRICITY GENERATION | ENVIRONMENT ECONOMIC GROWTH TRADE OFF PARADIGM |FOSSIL FUEL | GREEN | GREENHOUSE GASES | NEW YORK TIMES | RENEWABLE ENERGY | STEVE COHENSBLOG | WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS


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President Obama’s Green-print for anEconomic RecoveryBy Steve CohenFebruary 27, 2009 | 2:48 p.m

On Feb. 24 we once again

were treated to the intelligence

and inspiration we have come

to expect from President

Barack Obama. As the

president noted in his speech,

The American Recovery and

Reinvestment Act is now law,

and one of the central themes

of the stimulus is investment

in science, technology and

renewable energy. President

Obama's rescue plan commits

$15 billion a year to develop

renewable energy

technologies, such as wind and solar power, to advance biofuels, clean coal and

fuel-efficient vehicles. Speaking before Congress on February 24, Obama

committed his administration to "doubling the US supply of renewable energy in

the next three years." That involves laying thousands of miles of power lines and

making homes and buildings more efficient.

His call to nationalism evoked President John F Kennedy's 1961 challenge to land

a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's. While the space race was built on a

fear of war, the effort to dominate the technologies of the 21st century was a call to

maintain the nation's dominance as an economic power. President Obama

observed that the rest of the world is not standing still: "We know the country that

harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet,

it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy

energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries

like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly

lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea."

The president hit the point precisely when he said, "to truly transform our

economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate

change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of


+Enlarge



More Columns >> energy." It was particularly inspiring to watch him clearly connect our economic

recovery to the creation of a greener economy. What is perhaps even more

remarkable is the billions of dollars that the United States has now committed to

this work. It truly is the functional equivalent of the space race of the 1960s, albeit

without a fixed deadline.

However, in my view the key point made by the president was in his role as

historian-in-chief. Not for the first time, he dismissed the idea that America's

wealth and destiny was a pure product of free enterprise:

"I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves; that

says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.

For history tells a different story. History reminds us that at every moment of

economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action

and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to

another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial

Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a

new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college

and created the largest middle-class in history. And a twilight struggle for freedom

led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of

technology that still shapes our world. In each case, government didn't supplant

private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for

thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive."

And he could have added to his examples, the development of smaller computers

for the space program, the development of the Internet by the Defense

Department, America's ports and the amazing growth of American agriculture that

followed the creation of a system of land-grant colleges.

The idiotic and ideological idea that wealth can be created without rules, collective

action and strategic planning is as ridiculous as the idea that government can

create wealth without a private sector. The lesson of the 20th century was not that

communism worked and it was not that free markets should always prevail. It was

that we need a mixed economy. Wealth is generated when government and the

private sector get good at working together. America must be a lucky country after

all. For at the very moment when we really needed a president who truly gets this

fundamental truth, we got one. Even better, we got a president who is a masterful

communicator and can convey this lesson to the American people.

I think the president is managing to get across a mixed message of realism and

hope for the future. He is also building a long-term trusting relationship with the

American people. I think that people can accept bad news as long as it is presented

honestly along with a plausible idea of how to get from bad times to good ones. To

some degree, economic revival is a psychological phenomenon. It begins when we

start to take action to build the future instead of hunkering down to protect what

we have. President Obama is clearly trying to reinforce the positive emotion that

focuses us on the future. I think it will work as long as he continues to tell the truth

and doesn't get enveloped in the presidential cocoon. Given his intelligence and

high degree of self-awareness, I have high hopes that he can succeed. America and

the world are looking for leadership and it looks like we have found it.



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Adapting to Climate Change in New York CityBy Steve CohenFebruary 27, 2009 | 2:52 p.m

As the first decade of the 21st

century closes, the climate

problem is starting to mature,

both as a policy issue and as

an area of academic inquiry.

In fact, we are starting to see

the development of two

distinct elements to the field.

The oldest area of inquiry is

the one that seeks to

understand the causes of

climate change and tries to

prevent them from taking

place. This is an effort to

mitigate or reduce the

amount of climate change. One of the facts of climate science is that the carbon

dioxide that causes global warming tends to accumulate in the upper atmosphere.

Much of the carbon dioxide that we have emitted since the 20th century remains in

the atmosphere, and even if we stopped all fossil fuel emissions today, some

amount of global warming is already inevitable.

For that reason, many policy analysts, climate scientists and engineers have begun

to concentrate on the issue of adapting to climate change. Here at Columbia's

Earth Institute, our NOAA-funded International Institute on Climate and Society,

our Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy and our Columbia Climate Center have

all begun to focus some of their work on adapting to climate change. It's not that

we are giving up on preventing additional damage, it is simply that some of the

damage has already been done, and we need to learn to cope. Many of Columbia's

climate scientists at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory continue to research

the basic causes and impacts of climate change. In the long run, there are limits to

how far adaptation will take us.

For New York City, one of the central impacts of climate change will be the

possibility of sea level rise caused by melting polar ice. New York is a coastal city

with nearly 600 miles of waterfront. With the exception of the Bronx, which is on


+Enlarge



More Columns >> the US mainland, the rest of the city is on Long Island, Manhattan Island and

Staten Island. Notice the island theme...

In a report released February 17, a panel of climate change scientists, academics

and private practitioners stated that New York City will face higher temperatures,

more frequent and intense rain and increased coastal flooding in the years ahead.

The New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) predicts New York City's

mean annual temperatures will increase by up to 3 degrees in the next decade and

7.5 degrees by the 2080s. Meanwhile, annual precipitation will grow by as much as

10 percent, and sea levels will rise by 12 to 23 inches by the 2080s. If a more rapid

"ice melt" approach is taken into account, that level could be as high as 55 inches

by the end of the century.

"Heat waves will become more frequent, intense, and longer in duration and brief

and intense rains likely will lead to inland flooding," the report claimed.

The projected effects of such climate change on New York City's infrastructure

include increased peak electricity loads in summer and reduced heating

requirements in winter due to more extreme temperatures. We will also see

increased street, basement and sewer flooding, and possibly a reduction in water

quality. Rising sea levels may also cause structural damage in low-lying areas of

the city.

The report will guide the Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which is working

to prepare the city's infrastructure to handle the effects of climate change. The

Department of Environmental Protection's Rockaway Wastewater Treatment

Plant, for instance, is preparing for increased costal flooding by elevating electrical

equipment, such as pump motors and circuit breakers.

"Planning for climate change today is less expensive than rebuilding an entire

network after a catastrophe," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who formed the

panel to conduct the study. "We cannot wait until after our infrastructure has been

compromised to begin to plan for the effects of climate change now."

In response to the report, Joseph Bruno, commissioner of the Office of

Environmental Management, said New York already has developed comprehensive

plans to deal with heat, flash flooding, and coastal storms. But he also urged New

Yorkers to do their part: "We continue to encourage all New Yorkers to learn about

the hazards they face and take the simple steps necessary to prepare for them."

Although the panel sought to reduce the uncertainties in their findings, which were

based on a range of global climate models and greenhouse gas emissions scenarios,

its members admitted that such uncertainties cannot be eliminated.

There are a lot of factors that will influence the accuracy of these projections. First,

we may figure out how to reduce the production of greenhouse gases. Second, we

may learn how to sequester and store carbon and develop policy mechanisms to

deploy this technology and pay for it. No matter what we do, however, it is prudent

to expect some of the impacts identified in New York City's analysis. Much of New

York's water, sewage, transportation and energy infrastructure is aging and

vulnerable. We will need to be constantly investing in its rehabilitation and upkeep

from now on. As part of this routine maintenance and replacement program, we

should analyze increased impacts from climate change. Mayor Bloomberg's

leadership on the issue of climate adaptation deserves our praise and support.




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Science, Technology and Economic Development

The Challenge of This Tough Job MarketBy Steve CohenMarch 4, 2009 | 8:52 a.m.

I have been talking a lot to my students about the job market many of them will

face this May. Believe it or not, this is mostly a good news story. One of my jobs at

Columbia University is to direct and teach in the environmental policy programs at

the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). One of these programs is a

one-year Master of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy

that is a joint project with the Earth Institute. The other is a two-year program in

environmental policy. I advise about 100 master’s students at SIPA. Currently, 75

are looking for jobs and the others are looking for summer internships.

Over the past month we have been hosting a variety of events to help our students

prepare for this very difficult job market. At the first event, about 50 of our alumni

and even more of our current students spent most of a Saturday afternoon in early

February sharing insights about the current state of the field in environment and

sustainability management.

In our second event, the staff at SIPA’s Office of Career Services and I devoted an

hour of class time to a strategy session with about 55 graduating students. Later

this week, the Earth Institute hosts a career fair for students in the environmental

and sustainable development programs at all the schools in the Ivy League. Last

year 78 organizations staffed exhibits at the fair, this year only 69 will be present.

According to my colleague Louise Rosen, Director of the Earth Institute’s Office of

Academic and Research Programs, “Forty of the organizations that participated in

the past several years have told us they are not able

to take part this year because they are either not

hiring or don’t have the resources to go out and

recruit new staff.”

Louise and her staff have worked extraordinarily

hard to find new employers to replace the old ones

they’ve lost, and they have been very successful in

their efforts. However, this is the toughest employment market I have ever seen.

What this shows, of course, is that what was easy before has now become more

difficult. But it also demonstrates success is still possible. We face an extremely

tough economic environment – even for some of the brightest and best-trained

young people in the world. But the situation is far from impossible. While the stock

market continues its slow-motion decline, the talent, energy and idealism of the




More Columns >> generation that first responded to President Obama’s message of hope continues to

say “Yes we can.”

And yes they are. They are demonstrating some of that toughness that before the

era of supersized fast food, big-screen TVs and endless shopping, represented the

essence of the American ethos. They know what they are up against, but they also

know that the future belongs to those that are well educated and prepared to

participate in the emerging green economy. They will simply work harder than

their predecessors to find or make the opportunities they seek to make this world a

better place. To see them, talk to them and teach them is to be optimistic about

America’s prospect for recovery.

Nevertheless, this situation remains frightening to the core. If the top students in

America’s elite universities are apprehensive about the current job market, what

about the rest of young America? Tales of job loss and suffering have punctuated

the story of this endless winter. Food banks are busier than ever. Homeless

shelters are filled to capacity. The sight of for sale signs and the trauma of home

foreclosures are everywhere. Everyone now knows someone who has lost his or

her job.

While it is clear that greed, stupidity and irresponsibility caused the financial

breakdown, very few Americans are greedy, stupid and irresponsible. This nation

has assets in place that continue to provide me with hope, and on some days,

confidence. The first is the determination and talent of my students. The second is

the determination, talent and inspirational voice of our new president. While the

usual interest groups are lining up for the titanic battle to restore business as

usual, President Obama and his team know that the old paradigm has shifted.

There really is no choice. One of the reasons Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

sounded so silly in his now infamous response to President Obama’s fiscal recovery

speech before Congress, is that the same old words sounded absurd. Private

enterprise and market economies can accomplish great things, but they can’t

accomplish everything. New Orleans fell because of gross negligence by our

government, and it will only come back after hundreds of billions of public dollars

are spent on its restoration.

I see the ideology of the past quarter century receding, replaced by the pragmatism

of this generation of students and our new president. These are tough and

challenging times. We need to be just as tough to meet the challenge. It is going to

be difficult, but I believe we will succeed.

MORE: NO CHANNEL | BARACK OBAMA | BOBBY JINDAL | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | EARTH INSTITUTE |ENVIRONMENT | ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT | GREEN ECONOMY | JOB MARKET | JOBS | STEVE COHENSBLOG | SUSTAINABILITY | UNEMPLOYMENT

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Governor Paterson’s Puzzling PoorPerformanceBy Steve CohenMarch 8, 2009 | 3:28 p.m

I had high hopes for David

Paterson when he became

governor, but I have to admit

I’ve pretty much given up on

him. I was appalled by the way

he treated Caroline Kennedy

when she expressed interest in

New York’s vacant Senate

seat: Hey Governor, a simple

no would have sufficed. Is it

really a good idea to humiliate

and then badmouth a public service-minded citizen who has done nothing but

good works for her entire life? The disorganization and confusion out of Albany

could not be coming at a worse time.

Last week New York state began to back away from its important and historic

participation in the agreement among the northeastern states to reduce

greenhouse gasses. As New York Times' reporter Danny Hakim wrote March 5:

“At the urging of the energy industry, Gov. David A Paterson has

agreed to reconsider a key rule New York adopted as part of a 10-state

pact aimed at reducing the threat of global warming by cutting power

plant emissions. Gov. David A. Paterson may alter regulations in which

utilities buy or trade allowances to cover carbon dioxide emissions. Mr.

Paterson appeared to overrule the State Department of Environmental

Conservation in making the move, which would reopen state

regulations to provide power plants leeway to release greater amounts

of emissions at no additional cost. Administration officials said the

governor was concerned the rule might unfairly burden the energy

industry.”

While this is an absolutely inexplicable political move, it is also evidence of a poor

understanding of the grave threat posed by global warming. It also means that

unlike President Obama, Governor Paterson does not understand the connection

of environmental protection to economic growth. Or perhaps he understands the





More Columns >> connection, but like the most recent President Bush, has decided to pander to the

energy industry for campaign contributions. Of course, the day after the Times'

story, Erik Engquist reported in Craine’s New York Business that the Governor has

made no decision on the issue. According to Engquist’s story: "On Friday his

[Paterson’s] office sought to allay concerns. ‘We haven’t made any changes yet, and

we haven’t even suggested any,’ said spokesman Morgan Hook. ‘The governor

made a commitment to look at the regulations again if it’s determined that there’s

a need to do so.’”

There is a disturbing pattern here in the clumsy way Governor Paterson

approaches policy issues. Perhaps his long years of service in the legislature has

been poor preparation for the responsibilities of executive office. A state senator in

the political minority can reconsider all the policy he wants to reconsider and it is

no big deal. A governor has the power to rewrite the rules, and therefore when a

governor says he is going to reconsider a rule, it is not a purely academic

exercise—it means the policy might actually change.

Given the importance, visibility and symbolic nature of this issue, I truly cannot

understand why the governor has re-opened it. Didn’t someone on his staff

mention that he would expose himself to an onslaught of political attack from the

environmental community? Didn’t anyone mention to him that the policy action

on global warming has now shifted to Washington DC, where a national cap and

trade system of carbon limits and fees (a form of carbon tax) has already been

proposed by our new President? In all likelihood, New York’s rules will be

supplanted by national policy. This was not an issue Paterson needed to take on.

Even if he was inclined to pander to the energy industry, he could have easily said

he was waiting to see what the federal government would do.

As the most recent Marist poll reports, the broad public has lost confidence in the

governor. Paterson’s approval rating of 26% is the lowest for any governor since

the Marist poll began state-wide surveying almost 30 years ago.

While elected officials often come back from poor poll results, the good will and

political support that Governor Paterson brought with him into office has now

evaporated. Given his approach to the global warming issue, and his handling of

Caroline Kennedy’s halting Senate bid, it is easy to see why. What I find so

puzzling is that David Paterson is a bright, talented and dedicated public servant.

The state and nation are in the midst of the deepest financial crisis of our lifetime.

We need a governor capable of rising to the occasion. That is not what we are

getting.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS | CAROLINE KENNEDY | DAVID PATERSON | GLOBALWARMING | GREENHOUSE GASES | MARIST POLL | NORTHEAST STATE PACT | POPULARITY | PUBLIC OPINION |PUBLIC SERVICE | REGULATION | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Developing A Sustainable Planet: The BasicsBy Steve CohenMarch 13, 2009 | 12:02 a.m.

While it will not be smooth or

simple to build, I believe we

are at the start of a sustainable

or green economy. My

reasoning here is not simply

naive optimism, but

recognition of necessity. The

false wealth of the period

ending has focused many of us

on the need for a solid,

understandable basis for our

economy. One part of a solid

economy is found in free

market capitalism where

investors risk their wealth to

create a valued product or service. The success of this enterprise produces wealth,

and some people get rich and some people do not. Along with capitalism comes the

recognition that a certain amount of income inequality is not only acceptable, but

also desirable.

The question is how much inequality should there be? The answer is not so much

inequality that people on the bottom of the ladder cannot live a decent life. Not so

much inequality that there is hunger, hopelessness, untreated disease, violence

and inadequate access to education. We’ve learned that a large middle class makes

societies wealthier and can contribute to political stability. But without public

policy to encourage a middle class, the logic of the unregulated market leads to

greater and greater inequality. A second part of a solid economy is one that creates

and maintains production and wealth over the long term. A concern for the long

term is central to the definition of sustainability.

If a nation achieves wealth by oppressing its people or damaging ecological

resources, it eventually pays a price for its misdeeds. In the United States we paid

the price of oppression under slavery with a brutal civil war and its racist

aftermath. We have also spent hundreds of billions of dollars to manage and clean

the poisons we released into the environment and still release in the name of

industrial production. China has only started to learn the environmental and


+Enlargewoodleywonderworks via Flickr



More Columns >> financial cost of rapid development. In the end they will pay, and here in the

United States we will continue to pay as well. Short-term gains are often bought at

the price of long-term pain. This is a concept that is gaining currency. Landing on a

carrier in a pilot’s outfit does not mean you accomplished your mission. Sometimes

a fund that pays off the same high return year after year is too good to be true and

turns out to be an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. On the other hand, an experienced

pilot who knows his stuff and is humble and dedicated just might manage to land a

jet plane on a river. Most people can distinguish solid from shaky. Sustainable

means solid, dependable stuff that is designed to last for the duration.

What do we need to develop a sustainable planet? There are a number of

prerequisites:

• Reduce the destructiveness of competition between people and nations.

• End the growth of the human population, end poverty and eliminate extreme

levels of income inequality.

• Develop renewable, non-fossil fuel based energy.

• Learn how to reduce the damage we do to our environment.

Peace. With the presence of weapons of mass destruction, we need to develop a

system of international law that reduces the probability that these weapons will be

used. Our current system of international law, balance of power and diplomacy

has failed from time to time, but has at least prevented unimaginable disaster from

taking place. We need to improve these international institutions.

Population and Poverty. The human population continues to grow. Last

month, the world’s population grew by about six million. This growth was uneven

across the globe. In developed countries such as Japan, that do not encourage

immigration, population is declining. Last year Japan’s population went down by

50,000. In the developed world, population growth would end if not for

immigration. In developing nations the population is still growing. The reason for

these different growth patterns is simple. In the developing world, a parent cannot

be sure that their child will grow to be an adult, and in the absence of social

security, children are the best form of old-age insurance. Moreover, in an agrarian

world, children are needed to grow and harvest food. In the developed world,

children are typically economic liabilities. They cost a great deal to raise and

educate. We love and value our families, but do not raise children for the economic

benefits they bring.

People who study economic development and population talk about something

they call a demographic transition. This is what happens when a developing

country makes the transition to full economic development. Children are no longer

perceived to be economic assets, but economic liabilities; and the population stops

growing. The best way to end population growth is to end poverty.

Ending poverty also leads to sustainability in two other ways. First, poverty breeds

political conflict. People without an ownership stake in society have less to lose and

may be drawn to conflict. Parents who can provide for their children and

realistically hope for a better life for them will favor peace over war. Second, some

of the best brains that will one day invent a new technology or the cure for cancer

may very well be trapped in a life of poverty and will never get the education they

need to help us think our way to a sustainable future.


Energy. To reduce damage to the biosphere, reduce global warming and reduce

the cost of energy, we need to transition our economy to renewable, non-fossil

fuels. While there are plenty of fossil fuels left on the planet, extracting those fuels

will only get more difficult and expensive in the future. Burning fossil fuels will

continue to damage our ecology and atmosphere. Renewable energy is the key to

the green economy. Without it such an economy will never be achieved. The

Obama administration’s energy initiative is a critical first step in developing this

new energy economy.

Ecological Footprint. The year 2007 was a turning point in world history – for

the first time a majority of the world’s population lived in cities. One of the great

paradoxes of modern life is that given the size of the world’s population, it is better

for the planet’s ecosystems if people live together in cities than if they are

dispersed throughout the countryside. By living in cities we make it easier to

preserve natural environments outside of cities. New York City is much more

energy efficient than most other places in the United States. As we learn to more

effectively manage our energy, water and waste through increasingly sophisticated

technology, we can reduce our impact on the planet and gradually transition to

sustainability.

Can we do it? Can we get from here to there? Let’s put it this way, if we don’t learn

to grow our economy while protecting our environment, we may survive, but to

paraphrase Nikita Khrushchev, “the living will envy the dead.” While the human

species has some irrational tendencies, we don’t tend to be suicidal. The opposite

of sustainable development is short-term wealth that can’t be maintained. Sounds

a little like Wall Street at the start of the 21st century. I like to think we are a

teachable species. Let’s hope we are.

MORE: ECOLOGY | ECONOMY | ENERGY | ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT | FOSSIL FUELS | INEQUALITY | PEACE |POPULATION GROWTH | POVERTY | STEVE COHENS BLOG | SUSTAINABILITY


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Measuring Emissions of Greenhouse Gasses: EPA Takes a Critical First StepBy Steve CohenMarch 17, 2009 | 12:00 p.m

Watching the Obama

Administration’s “green team”

in action is inspiring. In a very

short period of time, these

folks have revitalized our

environmental agenda. They

are doing it with words and

with deeds. While there is

plenty of rhetoric and lots of

symbolic action, there is also

significant and important

activity underway at the ground level. Taken together, we are seeing a rapid

repudiation of the Bush environmental legacy, along with the reversal of many of

the Bush era’s environmental policies.

On March 10, 2009 EPA took an important positive step under the Clean Air Act to

begin the regulation of greenhouse gasses. At long last the U.S. government

proposed a national system for reporting emissions of carbon dioxide and other

greenhouse gasses. According to EPA estimates, about 13,000 large facilities

produce over 80% of the nation’s greenhouse gasses and those facilities are

covered by the proposed regulation. Most of the information we have about the

concentration of greenhouse gasses are estimates based on computer models. This

new rule starts the process of collecting detailed information on emissions,

measured at the actual source of those emissions. In order to implement policies

to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need detailed information on

who emits these gases and how much they generate. We need to learn to collect,

report, analyze and verify real data on actual emissions.

Lisa Jackson, EPA’s new Administrator, acknowledged the importance of this

proposed rule and observed that: “Our efforts to confront climate change must

be guided by the best possible information. Through this new reporting, we will

have comprehensive and accurate data about the production of greenhouse gases”

The importance of this step cannot be minimized, and the absence of such a system

made any discussion of reducing global warming little more than a symbolic

exercise. The fact that EPA is getting serious about measuring the actual sources of


+EnlargeKevin Krejci via Flickr



More Columns >> greenhouse gas emissions tells you that they are finally serious about controlling

them. A fundamental of management is that you can’t manage something unless

you measure it. Measurement tells you if the actions taken by management are

making things better or worse. You can’t set a precise price on carbon unless you

have real information on how much a source emits.

I know that some people find details like this boring and unexciting, but change in

public policy always begins with ordinary, prosaic steps like this one. It’s important

to understand that this is just a critical first step of a very long process. If EPA’s

regulation survives the public comment period and is not delayed by the courts,

the first reported data will not arrive until 2011. This means that regulations or

carbon fees designed to reduce these emissions cannot be put into effect until these

emission reports are submitted and verified.

While it will take a while to achieve reductions in greenhouse gasses, the first U.S.

program to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act is now

underway. While we need a law that will focus specifically on global warming, and

we also need an international agreement, this is a good place to start. EPA often

begins new areas of regulation by reinterpreting existing laws. Before there was a

Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1972, EPA began regulating water pollution

through the creative use of the 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act. Even though that law

was designed to keep the ports clear for shipping, its language could also be used to

regulate discharges of pollutants in waterways near major cities. (We’ll leave out

the fact that the Republican Nixon Administration focused its early enforcement

efforts on cities with Democratic Mayors!)

Solving the climate crisis will require a series of concerted actions on a variety of

fronts:

- We need to develop cost effective renewable energy technologies.

- We need to learn how to sequester and store the carbon dioxide already in the

atmosphere and the additional carbon to come.

- Americans waste enormous amounts of energy-- so one of the easiest things we

can do is become more efficient in our use of energy.

- The global warming now under way requires that here in New York City we adapt

our infrastructure to minimize damage from flooding.

- National and international law must be established to reduce emissions of

greenhouse gasses.

- We need to learn how to set a price for carbon that reduces the use of fossil fuels

and encourages renewable energy but does not stunt economic growth.

The idea that we should choose among these actions is absurd. We need to do all of

it as soon as we can. However, in order to reduce global warming, we must develop

an effective and accurate system for measuring this type of pollution. On March 10,

2009, the EPA took an important and long overdue first step in this process.

Elections really do have consequences. Fortunately.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CARBON EMMISSIONS | CARBON FEES | CLEAN AIR ACT | EPA | FEDERAL WATERPOLLUTION CONTROL ACT | GEORGE W. BUSH | GLOBAL WARMING | GREEN TEAM | GREENHOUSE GASES |LISA JACKSON EPA ADMINISTRATOR | RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES | RICHARD NIXON | RIVERS &HARBORS ACT | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Public Service and Private GreedBy Steve CohenMarch 22, 2009 | 1:48 p.m

On Election Day in 1960, my

family placed a hand lettered

sign in our living room

window on East 59th street in

Brooklyn that read “Kennedy

for President”. A few months

later, as a seven year old boy, I

remember watching President

Kennedy on our black and

white television ask us to

pledge “what we could do for

our country”. It was a thrilling,

inspiring moment. I think that

the start of my lifelong

commitment to public service

can be found somewhere within that poetic and historic speech.

I began my career working in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency back in

1977 when EPA was only seven years old. I worked to improve public participation

in our water pollution control programs. A few years later I was part of a small

team that set up the Superfund toxic waste clean up program. Since the

mid-1980’s I’ve led a series of public administration programs at Columbia

University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The goal of those programs

was to promote public service and educate professional public servants. Through

most of that time, these past three decades, our culture has glorified private

enterprise and denigrated public service.

Public service does not necessarily mean working for government. It means

serving the broader community and pursuing something other than personal

profit. President Obama has made it clear that we all share responsibility for taking

care of each other. That is the essence of public service. I think of public service as

both an activity and a value, and as our highest secular calling.

Last week, by a vote of 321-105, the House of Representatives enacted a dramatic

expansion of the AmeriCorp program. Under this new legislation the program will

grow from 75,000 to 250,000 slots. The Senate is expected to do the same very

soon. AmeriCorp funding provides stipends that range from $11,800 to $22,800


+EnlargeFlickr via cliff1006



More Columns >> (though most are set at $11,800) along with educational benefits as well. The jobs

are typically in nonprofit organizations working at the local level on education,

social service, energy and health programs.

As the vote indicates, there is strong bipartisan support for encouraging public

service. Senators Orin Hatch and Ted Kennedy have co-authored a number of

these statutes over the years. This is not to say that Congressional support was

unanimous. For example, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C) complained: “Well, I

think it's important that we encourage volunteers, but this is a paid job. This is a

government-authorized charity." Fortunately, this is not a mainstream view. Most

everyone gets the idea that community service ought not be limited to those who

can afford to work without being paid.

The revival of public service stands in sharp contrast to the finance industry’s

greed and sense of entitlement. The disgusting spectacle of the AIG bonus scandal

is the most visible evidence of Wall Street’s fall from grace. I’m not sure what is so

complicated about the notion that bonuses should only come to those who earn

money for their companies. When the finance industry is finally re-regulated, most

of the riskiest financial practices that have evolved over the past few decades will

be illegal. The free market will be preserved, but the unregulated, anything goes

market, has already died.

As the shattered economy begins to revive, I expect to see some old fashioned

values return. Hard work, thrift and a less cavalier attitude toward risk are

definitely back in style. Some fear that American creativity and entrepreneurship

will fade along with the demise of downtown’s Masters of the Universe. I suspect

not. I think the community organizers on the streets of Southside Chicago and

Bed-Sty along with the engineers working on solar cells in their garages are the real

risk takers in our society; So too are the soldiers, cops and firefighters that put

their lives on the line for all of us every day. The greedy jerks that risk other

people’s money while pocketing their up-front cash are not worth worrying about.

Everyone understands the idea of public service. We all know what it means to

offer a helping hand, or to be offered one when we are in need. We also know what

greed looks like. For too long we have justified greed and selfishness in the interest

of promoting a free market. That was a mistake. We need a little less private profit

and a lot more community service. The expansion of AmeriCorps is an important

step in the right direction.

MORE: AIG BONUS SCANDEL | AMERICORP PROGRAM | BARACK OBAMA | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OFINTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS | FREE MARKET | JOHN F. KENNEDY | ORIN HATCH | PUBLIC SERVICE |STEVE COHENS BLOG | SUPER FUND TOXIC WASTE CLEAN UP | TED KENNEDY | U.S. ENVIRONMENTALPROTECTION AGENCY | VIRGINIA FOX | WALL STREET | WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PROGRAM

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Homelessness Is On the RiseBy Steve CohenMarch 27, 2009 | 10:01 a.m.

The growth of tent settlements

in California and elsewhere is

one of the saddest

developments in this season of

sadness. As President Barack

Obama recently observed, “It

is not acceptable for children

and families to be without a

roof over their heads in a

country as wealthy as ours.”

Here in New York City

successive mayors since the Koch administration have wrestled with this difficult

and seemingly intractable problem. The website of the NYC Department of

Homeless Services’ posts a “Daily Homeless Census”, and on March 24 it logged

35,107 New Yorkers without a home. This number included 8,092 families with

children and 6,865 single adults. According to the City, 2,328 individuals living

in New York City are without shelter, a drop from 3,306 a year ago and 4,395

individuals in 2005.

While the decrease is positive, this data still means that about 7% of New York

City’s homeless are without shelter on an average night. New York does a better

job of sheltering its homeless than many other places – the City contracts with

more than 150 non-profit providers of shelter and other services for homeless

people, and since the early 1980’s New York State’s courts have maintained that all

New Yorkers have the legal right to shelter. Yet, homelessness remains a horror for

adults and a disaster for children and families.

For a number of years I have been on the Board of Directors of Homes for the

Homeless, an amazing organization founded in 1986 by Hartz Group Chairman

Leonard N. Stern. Homes for the Homeless is a public-private partnership

between city government, private business, and the Cathedral of St. John the

Divine. Since 1987, my good friend and Columbia colleague Dr. Ralph Nunez has

served as President and CEO of Homes for the Homeless. Each year, the

organization provides shelter for about 1,000 families and 2,500 children. In

addition to a place to sleep, "Homes" provides meals, after-school day care, adult

education, summer camps and other services designed to help homeless families





More Columns >> escape poverty. For about 20 years Dr. Nunez taught quantitative analysis to public

policy students at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. In

addition to working to help homeless families survive, he has worked to analyze

and understand the causes and effects of homelessness. To do that, he and his

colleagues began a small think-tank called the Institute for Children and

Poverty. According to the Institute’s website:

-More than 1.35 million children from 600,000 families are homeless in America,

and available shelter and housing for homeless families is decreasing.

-Overcoming homelessness is almost impossible without steady employment, and

more than two-thirds of homeless parents nationwide are unemployed.

-Homeless children have less of a chance of succeeding in school. Frequent school

transfers are the most significant barrier to the academic success of homeless

students.

-Homeless families are more vulnerable to serious health issues. Mental health,

tuberculosis and HIV are far more common than in the general public.

-Homeless parents and their children are more likely to have experienced violence.

One out of three homeless teens have witnessed a stabbing, shooting, rape, or

murder in their communities.

-Homeless parents and their children are more likely to be separated from each

other. In fact, 34% of school-aged homeless children have lived apart from their

families. More than 60% of children placed in foster care come from formerly

homeless families.

As the new Hoovervilles springing up on the West Coast indicate, homelessness is

a symptom of poverty and the lack of low-cost housing. As President Obama

indicated, we have a responsibility to help our neighbors who do not have the

means to help themselves. One difference in New York City, when compared to

some other American cities, is that homeless people are more difficult to ignore

here. While many homeless are “invisible,” many are not. This is a city of mass

and walking transit. Most people can’t simply hide up high behind the wheel of

their SUV and drive to the mall. The responsibility for our neighbors here is not

simply an abstraction – we see real human beings on our walk to work.

When I think about taking responsibility for our neighbors and building a

community, I have to think about Leonard Stern, the wealthy and powerful

business leader who founded Homes for the Homeless and then recruited Ralph

Nunez to run it. Theirs is an inspiring partnership comprised of Stern’s strategic

business sense and Nunez’s deep understanding of city politics and organizational

management. Homes for the Homeless is not perfect, but it is an impressive

organization. It shows what can be done, and it has made a material and

significant difference in thousands of lives. If you are interested in their story,

check out this video and you’ll see what I mean.

I believe that we will come out of these difficult economic times, renewed and

reminded of what matters. If you see a homeless child given a place to sleep and a

chance to overcome the poverty trap, you can’t help but be motivated. That

motivation is the source of the hope I feel for the future.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CHILDREN | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICES | FAMILIES| HOMELESSNESS | HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS | LEONARD STERN | PUBLIC POLICY | RALPH NUNEZ |RESPONSIBILITY | STEVE COHENS BLOG | TENT SETTLEMENTS

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The American Clean Energy and Security Actof 2009: Climate Policy Gets RealBy Steve CohenApril 1, 2009 | 4:08 p.m

Recently, Congressmen Henry

A. Waxman and Edward J.

Markey released a draft of the

American Clean Energy and

Security Act of 2009. And so

the great climate and energy

debate will finally begin for

real. I have been studying

environmental policy

development for over three

decades and just as we saw the

start of policy to clean the air and water in the 1970's and we then started working

on toxic waste clean-up in the 1980's, today, in 2009, we are finally at the moment

when climate policy truly begins. While we can’t see the finish line, we’ve just

heard the starter’s pistol.

This bill covers just about all bases: It provides for:

-Renewable energyby requiring utilities to use it for 6% of their power generation

in 2012 and 25% by 2025.

-Carbon Capture and Sequestration- by promoting the technology and large scale

use of carbon capture and storage. To make clean coal a reality.

-Clean Fuels and Vehicles- by providing greater incentives for electric vehicles.

-Smart Grid and Electricity Transmission- by providing new rules and resources to

modernize our capacity to transmit power.

-Energy efficiency- by requiring energy savings in buildings, manufactured homes,

appliances, transportation, industry and government.

-Reducing global warming pollutionby requiring reductions in emissions and

establishing a tradable permit system. Reductions begin at 3% below 2005 levels in

2012, 20% below that level in 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels in 2050.

Finally, the bill requires governments to begin planning for adaptation to climate

change and includes a number of provisions to facilitate the transition to a clean





More Columns >> energy economy.

There is going to be a heated and probably very symbolic debate with a “green

side” and an “economic growth” side and we will soon hear scientists and

environmentalists testifying before Congress that the approach is inadequate and

too slow. Some business leaders and free market advocates will say this bill will

ruin capitalism and the economy. I find neither argument persuasive. The

economics of this legislation will not impair economic growth. Because previous

environmental rules forced technological innovation, we found that

environmental law tends to fuel economic growth. As to the argument by some

environmentalists that the new policy will not work well enough or fast enough-

that is the fundamental question and an issue that no one knows the answer to.

Scientists sometimes find politics frustrating, due in part to the difference between

the scientific method and the policymaking process. Science tests hypotheses and

even builds mathematical models to try to gain knowledge and solve problems.

Science is goal seeking and rational. The policy process is different. Policymakers

don’t actually try to solve problems, but to make them less bad. The goal is not to

solve the problem, but to “move away from it”. In New York City we reduced

homicides from over 2,000 a year to less than 600- the problem is less bad but far

from solved. We aren't always capable of destroying the wild beast, but we

somehow manage to keep it away from our door. Policy, to quote the great public

policy scholars David Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom: is “remedial, serial and

exploratory”. That means public policy tries to: 1.) Remedy the worst parts of

society's problems; 2.) Solve problems through trial and error. Most efforts to solve

public policy problems are not a continuous process from start to finish. We start,

we catch our breath and reconsider- and then we start again. We make public

policy this way becuase the problems we ask governments to address are more

complicated than the problems we assign to science. Environmental problems are

caused by human interactions with our biosphere. Human beings and the

biosphere are hard to understand. Add culture, economics and technology to that

mix and you see why human and social behavior are so difficult to predict. Even

simpler behaviors like “how do I motivate a teenager to clean her bedroom”

sometimes seem beyond our reach.

The punch line to the climate joke is that we will not solve it all at once. We simply

do not know how to motivate all of the behaviors needed to solve the climate

problem. In fact, we don’t even know all of the actions that might allow us to solve

the problem. What is critical is that we get started: For real. No more symbolic

silliness. Real law, real money, real leadership: Now. For the environmental

community, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need to learn

how to do this job. Maybe cap and trade will fail and only a pure carbon tax will

work. Anyone who says they know that for a fact is wrong. No one knows how to

transform our economy to renewable fuels. At best we are making educated

guesses. We are in for lot of two steps forward and one step back. When you’re in a

crisis, as I believe we are, the key is to take those steps quickly. We also need to

aggressively and even ruthlessly measure results and take corrective action when

we make mistakes.

The issue of climate policy and global sustainability is at long last at the heart of

our political dialogue and firmly placed on the political agenda. Despite the

rumblings, even the world economic crisis is not able to push it aside. There is a

growing understanding of the need to use this crisis to begin the transition to a

green economy. While the path will be long and meandering, the introduction of

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Understanding the Climate Policy DebateBy Steve CohenApril 11, 2009 | 12:49 p.m

It is amazing to me how the

media can both create and

resolve its own conflicts. On

April 10 John Broder wrote a

piece for The New York Times,

"Obama, Who Vowed

Rapid Action on Climate

Change, Turns More

Cautious." In the story

Broder asks, “Has the

administration scaled back its

global-warming goals, at least for this year, or is it engaged in sophisticated

misdirection?” The answer: “Maybe some of both.”

Broder seems surprised that the Obama administration is moving carefully to

build consensus behind new policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

He identifies actions the administration has taken to move climate change forward

and then seems perplexed when it pauses to reflect and build consensus. I’m not

sure why anyone would expect President Obama to be aggressive and reckless

when everything about him seems persistent and careful.

The transition to a “green” economy will take a long time, and it will require

determined, constant and strategic effort. Rapid, risky and symbolic actions may

make dramatic news stories, but they are not going to do much to reduce carbon

dioxide emissions.

The electricity that allows me to sit at my computer and write these words is wholly

dependent on the fossil fuels that power New York City’s electrical grid. The still

fragile economy, which saw the shedding of nearly 700,000 jobs in the United

States last month, is fueled in the same way. It is clear to me and an increasing

number of world leaders that this is not a sustainable energy future. What is less

clear is how we get to one that is.

The policy prescription is obvious in general, but complex when you get to

specifics. Think about congestion pricing. It is clear to many of us that when there

are too many vehicles on the streets of lower Manhattan to move freely, someone





More Columns >> needs to figure out a way to reduce traffic. But how do you do that without

destroying the vibrancy of the local economy?

If you set a price on bringing a vehicle downtown, what is the correct price? In

addition to policies that “push” cars off the street, you also want to make mass

transit convenient and comfortable to “pull” people down underground as well.

To make this real we need to answer specific questions. How much do we charge as

a congestion fee? How much do we invest in new transit infrastructure and

technology? No one really knows. We need specific answers, but do not have

enough experience and hard data to do more than guess. The same is true of the

transition to a fossil-fuel-free economy. What should it cost to emit carbon

dioxide? How much should we invest in new energy technology? How do we push

the economy off fossil fuels and pull it toward renewable energy?

There is no question that we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. There is also

no question that we will not do this quickly enough to stop global warming. So we

will also need to sequester and store the carbon dioxide we have already emitted

and will continue to emit. We will need both a regulation limiting carbon emissions

as well as a tax on the carbon dioxide that is emitted. But how quickly can we

reduce emissions? What is technologically and economically feasible? What are

the positive economic impacts that will come from the technological development

of alternative energy and increased energy efficiency? What are the negative

economic impacts of the increased price of energy that will come from a tax on

carbon and/or a cap on carbon dioxide emissions? The simple answer to both of

these questions is that no one knows.

I have seen plenty of compelling analyses based on many sophisticated

mathematical models of what this energy future should look like. While these

models help us understand the complexity of the issue, none can predict the future.

We are going to have to do this the old fashioned way – through trial and error.

We will end up formulating climate policy the same way we have developed all the

other environmental policies we have set to date. We will start with less stringent

standards than the ones we will eventually adopt.

As Broder’s piece indicates, The Waxman-Markey climate bill, which I wrote about

in an earlier piece, provides an aggressive approach that changes the political

equation and allows the Obama administration to play the role of climate

moderate. We’ve seen this approach before. In building a consensus approach, the

White House can point to the Waxman proposal and tell industry insiders that if

they don’t play ball the law will end up even more extreme.

During the debate leading to the 1970 Clean Air Act, then-Senator Gaylord Nelson

proposed banning the internal combustion engine. Suddenly the catalytic

converter seemed a lot more technologically feasible to auto industry lobbyists.

The climate issue will follow the same well-worn path to environmental regulation

we have seen before. It will be made more complicated by the international

dimension of the issue, but the general pattern will look the same.

From my perspective, the key issue is to start this trial and error process as quickly

as possible. Let’s avoid the symbolic debate over the level of reductions we will

achieve in 2050. Let’s focus on what we can do by 2010 and 2012. Let’s get started.

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A Better Bottle Bill is Only the BeginningBy Steve CohenApril 15, 2009 | 2:17 p.m

Amid the New York State

budget’s disaster lays some

sign of progress. At long last

the state legislature has

expanded its law requiring

deposits on beverage bottles to

include a five-cent refundable

deposit on water bottles in

addition to beer and soda

beverage packaging.

According to state estimates,

water bottles comprise nearly a quarter of all beverage packaging sold in New York

(around 3.2 billion bottles), and revenues from the tax would generate around

$115 million each year. The law also requires beverage companies to return 80

percent of their unclaimed bottle and can deposits to the state’s Environmental

Protection Fund, but allows stores to keep a 3.5-cent handling fee, up from the

current fee of 2 cents.

For consumers the process is relatively easy. The law requires stores with more

than 40,000 square feet to install reverse vending machines that enable customers

to place bottles in the machine and receive money (or a credit slip) in return.

Implementation of the bill, however, may be more complicated than some

lawmakers believe. A requirement that a New York State-specific bar code be

placed on each bottle has distributors and store owners complaining that the June

1 start-up does not provide enough time to use all of the bottles currently in

circulation. Despite this start-up constraint, I suspect the new requirement will

eventually be absorbed into the current distribution system.

Bringing back all of these old bottles is a good idea. But the question then becomes,

what happens to them once they are collected? Long ago, in the Brooklyn of the

1950’s and 1960’s, we used to have a more close-ended system of beverage

distribution. Back then my Great Uncle Joe was a “Soda Man.” He drove a big

truck from house to house and delivered wooden (and eventually plastic) boxes

with slots for soda. When he reached our home, he carried them on his shoulder

down into the basement and for a week we enjoyed the locally bottled soda and





More Columns >> seltzer. At the end of the week he returned with a new beverage crate and took back

the old bottles. The empty bottles were washed out and reused. Our milk was

distributed in much the same way. The “Milkman” left glass bottles of milk in an

insulated aluminum box by our front door.

So what happens to today’s deposit bottles? Most of them are shipped out of the

United States, and many end up in China, where they are used to make shoes,

clothes and plastic containers. That supply chain has not always been negative.

“China's scrap trade has lifted the fortunes of both the very wealthy … and very

poor farmers who have migrated to the city to earn more from recycling than they

ever could by working the land,” wrote Austin Ramzy in a November article in

Time Magazine.

But as the world’s economy has crashed, piles of plastic are building up the

country. According to the Time story: “Plastic bottles, which sold for $1,175 to

$1,300 a ton as recently as the summer, are now trading in the

$300-to-$450-a-ton range. Zhang [Wei, a worker at a recycling center outside

Beijing] claims that as a result of the downturn in scrap prices, the losses sustained

by some of his neighbors have ranged from $6,000 to $150,000.”

The products we use are now part of a global system of production, consumption

and reuse or disposal. The system is fueled by relatively inexpensive energy and is

interconnected in many ways that we rarely notice. The advantage of the bottle bill

is that it provides some of the resources needed to encourage us to collect and

reuse waste. As long as a bottle has a deposit on it, its economic value is high

enough to encourage someone to carry some of the bottles to a place where they

can be collected for reuse. While it is good to see the law extend coverage to

non-carbonated beverages, I am disappointed that the State did not take advantage

of this opportunity to raise the charge to 25 cents. The deposit has been a nickel for

very long time, and the average person often finds it easier to toss the bottle in the

garbage then hold it to collect the deposit. The large number of non-returns are

evidence of this problem.

In the long run, we need to develop ways to close the loop between production and

consumption. The idea of producer responsibility is important to establish. If you

make something and sell it, the price of disposal or reuse should be included in the

cost of the product. Deposit bills on bottles or tires are one useful way to establish

this principle. In some cases, the private sector is not waiting for government

regulation. Companies like HP are providing free shipping to recycle printer toner.

Other approaches need to be developed, and we need to reduce the amount of stuff

this throw-away society throws out. New York’s expanded bottle bill is small but

positive step in the right direction.


International Affairs Student, Columbia’s School of International and Public

Affairs.

MORE: BOTTLE BILL | CONSUMPTION CYCLE | DEPOSIT TAX | NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE | RECYCLING |REUSE | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Earth Day 2009By Steve CohenApril 20, 2009 | 10:37 a.m.

This week we will celebrate the

39th Anniversary of Earth

Day, a holiday that in many

ways coincided with the

beginning of the mass

environmental movement in

the United States. The first

Earth Day, in 1970, was

proposed by then Wisconsin

Senator Gaylord Nelson, and

organized by Denis Hayes, one

of the truly effective leaders of

the environmental

movement. Here in the 21st

century, the planet needs protection more than ever, and we finally find a concern

for sustaining the earth slowly entering the political mainstream.

The challenge in this increasingly urban world is to build an understanding of the

importance of the biosphere. Today, it is important because we need it in order to

survive. As advanced as our technology is, we require the ecological services

provided by sunlight, biodiversity, and the subtle and complex web of natural

environmental relationships to provide us with air, water and food. We may

someday be able to live without our planet, but that day is a long way off.

In addition to the services that humans require from the planet to survive, there is

a deeper relationship with the biosphere that we need to acknowledge. Let’s

imagine that some day we had the technology to live without the planet: Would we

want to? Beyond sentiment and nostalgia, what does our relationship with the

Earth say about our own ethics and values?

We are a species that takes our domination of the planet pretty seriously. We are

most interested in maintaining those forms of life that help us maintain our own.

That is probably both logical and biological- we are very much attracted to the idea

of survival. But we also take great pleasure in our natural surroundings. We want

more than mere survival. Earth Day coincides with spring time and even here in

Manhattan, many of us are thrilled to see the light green aura of life remerge as

trees bud and flowers bloom. This past weekend I enjoyed biking from the new


+EnlargePhoto by John LeGear via Flickr.



More Columns >> waterside park in Harlem (just west of Fairway) down to the Intrepid along the

Hudson. All over the Northeast, people are emerging from winter’s cold and

rediscovering their gardens, forests and beaches. The preservation of these

pleasures requires that we preserve and value our planet.

It is possible to imagine a world without nature. In fact, science fiction is filled with

technologies that replace natural systems. When I was a kid I used to watch the TV

cartoon, “The Jetsons”. The Jetsons was a cartoon about family and work life in the

future. Cars flew through the air, your food came from a machine in the wall, the

family dog walked on a treadmill—and there was no nature. No trees. You lived

up in the sky and no one ever looked down at whatever was going on below. You

never saw a mountain or the ocean. In Star Wars, the home planet is completely

covered by a “world city”. To find nature in that version of the future (or the past)

you must travel to other planets.

Human imagination has a way of someday becoming human reality. Look at the

“communicator” held by Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek TV show- now look

down at your cell phone—anything look familiar? In the end, the preservation of

our planet and its amazing beauty requires that we value it enough to control the

technologies that damage it. Someday, the precautionary principle that we apply to

the introduction of new drugs in the market place will need to be applied to the use

of new production and product technologies. In the United States, the FDA

requires extensive testing of new drugs before they can be sold. We take the

precaution of making sure we understand how the new drug interacts with the

human body. We see if the drug’s desired effects are more valuable than its side

effects. When it comes to new technologies, we are all like the canary lowered into

the cave to see if the mine is safe for humans. If the canary comes back alive, we

send the miners down. If the canary is dead, we don’t. Similarly, if a new

technology kills us, or destroys the biosphere, we consider stopping it.

Technology makes modern life possible, but its use must be guided by a deeper

understanding of its impact on the biosphere. On this Earth Day, it’s important to

think about the Earth and our responsibility to our children and to their children.

It’s our job to pass the planet to the next generation intact and in good repair. To

do that we need to value the earth for more than what it provides to us, but for the

miracle it represents. Let’s make that the theme of this 39th Earth Day.

MORE: 39TH EARTH DAY | BIOSPHERE | DENIS HAYES | FDA | INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN HUMANS ANDEARTH | SENATOR GAYLORD WELSON | SPRING | STAR WARS | STEVE COHENS BLOG | SURVIVAL | THEJETSONS

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The Politics of Climate ScienceBy Steve CohenApril 27, 2009 | 12:00 p.m

Newt Gingrich, while gearing

up for a possible Presidential

run in 2012, is making the

point that legislation to

regulate carbon dioxide and

reduce global warming will

raise the price of energy and

deepen the recession. New

York Times reporter Andrew

Revkin recently reported that

the Global Climate Coalition, a

now defunct interest group once linked to the fossil fuel industry was putting out

public relations skeptical of global warming science, even when its own experts

were confirming the link between fossil fuels and global warming. Maybe Newt

should have gotten the memo: global warming is real.

These industry voices learned that denying scientific fact was a losing strategy.

Gingrich may eventually learn the same thing about the economics of global

warming. It is true that greenhouse gas regulation will raise the cost of fossil fuels;

just as catalytic converters, seat belts and air bags raised the price of cars. The

point is that the costs were outweighed by the benefits. Or perhaps Newt would

like to live in a world where cars were “unsafe at any speed” and the air was

something you could see as well as breathe.

In the long run, global warming will cost more than the cost of moving to a fossil

fuel free economy. Think about how much it would cost to build a system of sea

walls to protect New York City’s 600 miles of coast line from the impact of sea level

rise. Fossil fuels are finite resources. While there may be enough left for a hundred

years, doesn’t our species plan to be around after that? Fossil fuels will become

increasingly scarce, harder to pull out of the earth, and more expensive. On the

other hand renewable energy is not finite and will only get less expensive as its

technology develops. The short run pain of a carbon tax will increase the

competitiveness of renewables and ultimately lower the price of energy.

Renewable energy results in lower prices in the long run and even in the short run,

we can buffer the economic impact of higher fuel prices with more efficient use of


+Enlarge MiguelViera via Flickr



More Columns >> energy. Americans waste enormous amounts of energy. It leaks out of our homes

and we pump it into gas guzzling vehicles that could get twice as many miles to the

gallon as they do today. A 30% increase in the price of fossil fuels can be absorbed

by increasing energy efficiency by the same amount.

Global warming is not a joke. Its onset will be far from cost free. We now know

that even the energy business knew the facts on global warming, but tried to

suppress them. Newt Gingrich is smart enough to know that taxing carbon dioxide

emissions will do more than generate revenue for the government. It will

encourage energy efficiency and energy alternatives. Our long term economic

growth depends on energy innovation. We need to be the world leader in

renewable energy technology. If we don’t do it, someone else will.

Why are these business and political leaders willing to lie and distort the truth?

Newt is hoping it can gain him some attention in the 2012 Republican Presidential

contest. The energy industry is obviously hoping for a few more quarters of large

profits before they are submerged by the impacts of sea level rise. In Gingrich’s

case, you could argue that he is simply acting out of his long-standing opposition to

taxation of all kinds. In the case of the Global Climate Coalition, the story has no

redeeming value. They just decided to lie and hide the truth.

It is amazing that skepticism about the facts of global warming remains. Without

it, Gingrich would not dare attack policies that will regulate the emission of

greenhouse gasses. In the more complex world of the 21st century, the people who

lead our government and our businesses need a firm understanding of scientific

reality. Controversy is often part of new scientific discoveries. Science sometimes

leads to breakthroughs that can change our understanding of how the world works.

But while new discoveries often emerge and create controversy, they are eventually

confirmed and a scientific consensus emerges. That consensus is built on fact, not

opinion.

The scientific establishment has a variety of institutions that can be used to settle

scientific controversies. Those institutions have uniformly confirmed the facts of

global warming. We ignore that science at our peril. Our political institutions

need to do a better job of absorbing and acting on scientific information. Of course

suppressing and playing politics with science is destructive. As we learn to cope

with global climate change, let’s hope that we also learn to do a better job of

integrating scientific fact into the policy making process. Let’s act as if our lives

depend on it: Because they might.

MORE: 2012 PRESIDENTAL CONTEST | ANDREW REVKIN | CARBON DIOXIDE REGULATION AND TAX |ECONOMICS OF GLOBAL WARMING | FUSSIL FUEL FREE ECONOMY | GLOBAL CLIMATE COALITION | GLOBALWARMING SCIENCE | GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATION | NEWT GINGRICH | PRICE OF ENERGY & THERECESSION | RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Science, Technology and Economic DevelopmentBy Steve CohenApril 30, 2009 | 11:28 a.m.

On April 27th, President

Obama gave an inspiring

speech at the National

Academy of Sciences in

Washington D.C about the

importance of scientific

research and education. He

began by describing the

threats to global sustainability

and economic well being faced

throughout the world and here

in the United States. He

observed that:

“At such a difficult moment,

there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for

research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally

disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our

environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before.”

While Presidential Candidate Obama was criticized by some during the endless

Presidential campaign for being all talk and no action, the President Obama of the

past 100 days has matched his words with deeds. He did that at the National

Academy of Sciences when he announced:

“Federal funding in the physical sciences as a portion of our gross domestic

product has fallen by nearly half over the past quarter century. …So I'm here today

to set this goal: We will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and

development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the

height of the space race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research,

create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and

medicine, and improve education in math and science.”

The President then discussed the transformative effects of science on our world

view and sense of perspective. He related the often told story of Apollo 8’s first

photos of the earth from beyond the moon:


+Enlarge woodleywonderworks via Flickr



More Columns >> “In 1968, a year defined by loss and conflict and tumult, Apollo 8 carried into

space the first human beings ever to slip beyond Earth's gravity, and the ship

would circle the moon 10 times before returning home. But on its fourth orbit, the

capsule rotated and for the first time Earth became visible through the windows.

Bill Anders, one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 8, scrambled for a camera, and he

took a photo that showed the Earth coming up over the moon's horizon. It was the

first ever taken from so distant a vantage point, and it soon became known as

"Earthrise."

Anders would say that the moment forever changed him, to see our world -- this

pale blue sphere -- without borders, without divisions, at once so tranquil and

beautiful and alone. "We came all this way to explore the moon," he said,

"and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth."

I admit that I am not an objective observer of the science establishment. I am a

highly biased advocate of the importance of science education and research. I work

for a great American research university, and one of my jobs at Columbia is to

serve as Executive Director of the Earth Institute. Most of the more than 650

people who work at the Earth Institute are scientists; and they are, to a person,

dedicated to the task of learning more about our planet, and teaching what they

learn to students who come here from all over the world.

President Obama’s actions in his first several months in office have been like a

shot of adrenalin to the scientific community. People in our laboratories have been

encouraged in ways that have not been seen in a generation. They are being

challenged by national needs, by the President’s words, and by the sudden

availability of funding to expand their research and train more students.

The increased funding is important because it will allow our scientists to spend

less time searching for resources and more time working on their research. It will

also encourage students to major in the sciences and consider careers engaged in

scientific discovery. When the President advocates science and invests in scientists,

it sends a powerful signal that cannot be underestimated. For much of the past

quarter century many of our most talented quantitative minds headed toward Wall

Street and shunned other, less lucrative professions. The combination of losses in

the finance industry and increased funding for science can not help but direct

some of our brain power away from finance and toward basic and applied sciences.

I am not arguing that financial products are unimportant. Providing capital in

new and imaginative ways helps build new businesses and is essential to the

process of bringing new technologies and goods to the market place. However, over

the past several decades the finance industry dominated the market for young,

quantitative minds. Tilting that market back in the direction of careers in basic and

applied science and engineering is good for the United States and helps us compete

in the global economy.

President Obama and his science team deserve our praise and thanks for their

effort to bring science research and education back into the center of American life.

This is not science for its own sake, but science in our national interest. To quote,

once again, from his talk to the National Academy:

“The pursuit of discovery half a century ago fueled our prosperity and our success

as a nation in the half century that followed. The commitment I am making today

will fuel our success for another 50 years.”

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Torture: Ineffective, Illegal, and UnprincipledBy Steve CohenMay 4, 2009 | 11:48 a.m.

The issue of torture and

security keeps reemerging in

the news, as we debate

matters of national survival

and our core values. The issue

is often posed in the following

way: What if a terrorist had

information about an urgent

threat to American lives and

the only way to obtain that

information would be to

torture it out of him? The responses range from: No, even if we were under grave

threat, torture would violate our principles and we should never do it; to, torture

doesn’t work or produces unreliable information, so, we violate our principles and

get nothing for it.

My own view is that principles and values are important. We should not torture

because it is wrong and it violates the spirit of U.S. and International law. We

know that in the real world, people violate principles all of the time. Does that

mean we should have no principles? Does that mean we should develop less

stringent ones? One of our most deeply held ethical principles is about the sanctity

of human life. The commandment is: “Thou shall not kill”. It does not say: “don’t

kill except in self defense”. The principle is don’t kill. Yet, we kill all of the time.

Does that mean the principle should be watered down? One could argue that it has

never been an absolute principle. Wars and capital punishment have long violated

this principle. Nevertheless, its presence has influenced human behavior for

thousands of years. It has not eliminated brutality but it has delegitimized it.

Since we can’t operate a civil order without killing people, we focus on the method

of killing. When we remove someone from life, it should be done with a minimum

of pain in the process. The eighth amendment of the United States constitution

prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”. Water boarding is a cruel punishment,

although we have recently learned it is not as unusual as we thought. By holding

accused terrorists as “enemy combatants”, they do not receive the protections of

the American constitution. Alumni of the Bush Administration and its defenders


+Enlarge --Sam-- via Flickr.



More Columns >> argue that without torture, America would have been subjected to further terrorist

attacks. It is a claim that logically cannot be proven or disproven, but is, of course,

irrelevant.

The danger in eliminating the ban on torture as a method of investigation is that it

erodes a critical principle. We know that the principle will be violated during times

of duress, but if it is eliminated, torture will be legitimized and its day to day use

will be increased. Is that the type of world that America wants to build? Are those

the values that we have raised the world’s strongest military to defend? America's

claim to moral leadership is fundamentally debased by the defense of torture.

It is a tough world out there and there are evil people who are out to do us harm.

No one living in New York City or Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001 could

ever deny that point. We need to be aggressive and vigilant in defending our

families, property and ideals. But in the process of doing that we need to defend

our way of life—and that includes our values and self image.

If America is subjected to another large scale terrorist attack, you can be certain

that Dick Cheney and his pals will blame it on the “softer” approach to defense and

interrogation advocated by President Obama. I believe this is a ridiculous

argument. It is also a political argument and an effort to restore the post-Vietnam

image of the Democrats as the party that is soft on defense. We do not need to use

brutal tactics to reduce criminal behavior. Vigilance, intelligence, skill and

strategic thinking are far more effective. Here in New York City nearly two decades

of increasingly professionalized policing has taken place along side steady

reductions in crime. While civilian complaints against police misconduct continue,

and that misconduct continues, no one would argue that the increased safety of

New Yorkers was accomplished through increased incidences of police brutality.

Brutality is not a cost free strategy. When police act within the law and behave with

professionalism and dignity, it delegitimizes outlaw conduct. George L. Kelling and

James Q. Wilson’s famous broken window theory states that if one window in

an abandoned building is broken, soon the rest will be broken as well. Misconduct

is contagious. The importance of order and rules of correct behavior should never

be underestimated. I would argue that if the “window” is broken by the police, if

our government tortures prisoners, the situation is worse. If the people who are

responsible for enforcing our laws—and our principles—violate those laws and

principles, it fosters disrespect for all principles and laws. Ultimately that makes us

less safe. That is the case on the streets of New York City. When our police act

within the law, they build respect for law. If police are corrupt and brutal, the

fabric of public order becomes frayed. While the analogy is far from perfect, I think

it works that way in the international arena as well.

While I find torture personally abhorrent, and I suspect it is not all that effective as

an interrogation method; the central point is that torture is not the type of

behavior we expect from civilized, law abiding nations. When we look for loopholes

in the Geneva Conventions we undermine the rule of law. Torture is ineffective,

illegal, and a violation or our principles. The arguments in favor of it are far weaker

than the arguments against it. President Obama is correct in prohibiting torture,

and we should applaud his efforts to end its practice.

MORE: BUSH ADMINISTRATION | DICK CHENEY | EIGHTH AMENDMENT | ENEMY COMBATANTS | ETHICALPRINCIPLE | GENEVA CONVENTION | GEORGE L. KELLING | JAMES Q. WILSON | MORAL LEADERSHIP |NATIONAL SURVIVAL | PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA | SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE | STEVE COHENS BLOG |TERRORIST ATTACKS | TORTURE

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Global Sustainability and the Class of 2009By Steve CohenMay 11, 2009 | 4:10 p.m

Here on Columbia University’s

Morningside Heights campus,

at around Broadway and West

116th street, the surest signs of

spring are all of the

preparations for graduation

now underway.

Groundskeepers are planting

new shrubs, and bleacher

seats and tents are being

assembled everywhere.

Working in a place like this is both a joy and a privilege-- a fact never far from my

mind- especially this time of year. As another group of students gets ready to face

the challenges of the “real world,” a source of hope is the growing number of

students working on environmental issues. This can be seen in many of

Columbia’s Schools: its undergraduate College and School of General Studies, its

graduate schools of International and Public Affairs, Public Health, and

Architecture. In these schools and in our Engineering School we are seeing a

dramatic increase in interest in the study of environment, energy and sustainable

development.

At Columbia, a new undergraduate minor in sustainable development will soon

graduate its first class. Masters programs in climate and society, environmental

science and policy, environmental health policy and ecology have all been created

in the past decade-- and are all growing. A Ph.D. program in Sustainable

Development attracts about 150 applications each year for only six spaces. While

our schools and Columbia’s university-wide Earth Institute are constantly

developing new environmental educational initiatives, it is our students that are

providing the drive and demand that is fueling the growth of sustainability studies

on campus. This is happening here in New York City and around the nation.

A few weeks ago the graduating environmental science seniors at Columbia and

Barnard presented their senior projects in a poster session held before a

packed crowd on the Barnard campus. Papers ranged from Alison Powell’s,

“Reducing Emissions on Agricultural Lands in the Hudson Valley “ to Robin

Broder’s “The Future of Electric Vehicles and Challenges for

Infrastructure”. If watching these young scientists present their findings doesn’t


+Enlarge maxintosh via Flickr



More Columns >> provide you with hope for the future, I don’t think you’re paying attention.

At Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, I direct a Graduate

program that awards a Master of Public Administration Degree in Environmental

Science and Policy. In their final semester, about 60 students are divided into five

groups and work with a faculty member to produce consulting reports for public

sector clients. Over the past several weeks, these students have been presenting

the results of their latest projects. Last week, a group of students I worked with

presented their study on how to improve energy efficiency in the New York City

Housing Authority. The Housing Authority has an impressive record of

accomplishment in energy efficiency and my students studied cases from around

the world to come up with some new ideas for New York City. Other projects

presented by our students included:

• Assessing the Effectiveness of Payments for Environmental/Ecological Services--

for the Wildlife Conservation Society;

• Gateway National Park’s Long-Term Ecosystem Management Options under

Changing Climate Conditions-- for the U.S. National Park Service;

• Quantifying and Reducing a National Organization’s Impact on Global Climate

Change and Developing a Model to be Replicated-- for the National Audubon

Society;

• An Analysis of Renewable Energy Payments (REPs) Policies for the United

States-- for the nonprofit groups Alliance for Renewable Energy (ARE) and

EarthAction

Columbia is far from unique in producing these reports and in educating students

interested in ensuring a sustainable planet. This is happening everywhere and in

greater numbers every day. The new administration in Washington is encouraging

it, but they too, like our faculty at Columbia, are responding to a strong and

constant demand from young people across the country and around the world.

Educating the next generation of environmental professionals and scientists is a

challenge, even to those of us who have worked in this field for many years.

Students are demanding that traditional questions and methods be replaced by

programs of study that bring together many fields and help solve real-world

problems.

These demanding students and the dedicated faculty working in this area are a

source of optimism for the future. This generation of students is not interested in

the environment simply out of a love of nature. While some care about the

outdoors, many are just as interested in sustainable cities and “green buildings”.

They do not see the environment as a “frill”, but view a sustainable planet as a

necessity for their own future.

The graduation season on campus is always a time of hope as well as a nostalgic

rite of passage. Proud families and posed photos are the order of the day. One of

the most renewable resources we have is the brainpower, hard work and sense of

idealism of our young people. This precious resource is an essential component of

our transformation to a sustainable planet and a green economy. They deserve our

thanks and our support, along with our congratulations.

MORE: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | ENVIRONMENTAL PROFESSIONALS | GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY | GREEN

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The Stuff of SustainabilityBy Steve CohenMay 14, 2009 | 5:39 p.m

Recently, New York Times

reporter, Leslie Kaufman

wrote an excellent story on an

interesting and important

video called “The Story of

Stuff”. Kaufman writes that:

“The video is a cheerful but

brutal assessment of how

much Americans waste, and it

has its detractors… The video

was created by Annie Leonard,

a former Greenpeace employee and an independent lecturer who paints a picture

of how American habits result in forests being felled, mountaintops being

destroyed, water being polluted and people and animals being poisoned.”

The video is compelling and thought provoking but at times factually incorrect and

misleading. For example, when you include state and local government spending,

there is no way that half of our tax dollars are spent on the military—one of the

points made by the “Story of Stuff”. However, I don’t think the issue of defense

spending is central to the argument made in the video. The video’s overall point is

correct: that our economic base is built on overconsumption and waste of finite

natural resources. It makes the point in simple graphic terms and is easy to follow

and mostly correct. It’s too bad that its inaccuracies mar its production and

undermine its overall point. It’s also too bad that it doesn’t present a workable

solution to the problem it poses. Still, I urge you to take twenty minutes and

watch it.

An important point raised by the video is the role of planned obsolescence and

advertised based demand in the creation of the American consumer culture. The

current economic climate is making many of us think about the connection of

material consumption to quality of life, and that reflection is long over due.

However, some of its analysis is overly simplistic and off base. The video’s

treatment of garbage, or solid waste management, is a case in point. Incineration

and landfills are seen as evil, with incineration’s dioxin emissions portrayed as the

greatest of evils. The answer to our waste problem proposed by the video is “zero

waste”. This is, of course absurd. Perhaps we should send all those big green bags

on the sidewalk to solid waste heaven instead. Waste can’t be ignored or wished


+EnlargeFlickr via Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer



More Columns >> away and it can’t be totally eliminated. It must be reduced, recycled and managed.

Making people feel guilty about consuming and opposing all forms of solid waste

management doesn’t seem particularly helpful. Yes, we need to build more durable

goods that should be engineered for re-use. Yes, we should develop waste

management systems that pollute less than the ones we have. Yes, we should build

our economy on renewable rather than finite resources. But, the future of the

planet must deal with the presence of seven to ten billion people. It is too late for

all of us to live in rural settings in complete harmony with nature. We must learn to

manage our way to sustainability. For better or worse our survival depends on our

ingenuity and our ability to develop and manage technological fixes.

The world economy is so tightly interconnected that even the slight reduction in

American consumption now underway has already increased misery here and

around the world. If this small decline in consumption has had a dramatic impact

on the world’s economy, it should be obvious that the transition to a sustainable

economy cannot be done overnight and must be carefully undertaken.

The video’s treatment of the flow of materials in and out of our economy is an

important concept for people to understand. Its discussion of alternatives to

consumption and the causes of over consumption are also well presented. What we

need now are realistic solutions that can be sold to everyone. One problem with a

non-sustainable economy is that even wealthy people are endangered by it. The

politics of sustainability requires that everyone understand that wealth itself

requires functioning ecosystems. We humans are biological creatures. We need

healthy air, water and food in order to live. If we poison our planet, even your local,

over-priced organic market will have to close down due to lack of supplies.

People like modern conveniences. These demands are not simply created for us.

IPods, laptops, cell phones, air conditioning, autos and travel are attractive

elements of our life style. While we don’t need a new cell phone every year, we like

to use these devices to conveniently communicate with family and friends and

people who provide us with services. These demands are not simply created by

advertisers and capitalists. They are responses to human wants and needs. If

sustainability requires that we return to campfires and hunting and gathering to

eat, it’s a concept that will never get very far. It is not only infeasible and

undesirable, it would be politically destabilizing.

The answer to the “story of stuff” is not to shut down the economy, but change the

way it operates. We need sustainability management. We need an economy built

on the principles of industrial ecology: Industrial production with as little waste as

possible. We need to make sure that most of the raw materials that go into the

production process emerge as useful products. The goods we produce should be

designed to be re-engineered and reused when they reach the end of their useful

life. Agriculture must be approached as a sustainable industry based on renewable

resources. Energy must transition from finite fossil fuels to renewable solar-based

sources. Waste must be reduced and whenever possible put to use as energy,

fertilizer or construction materials.

The Story of Stuff raises critical issues and provokes discussion and so it is worth

watching. I’ll be waiting for the sequel, I’m hoping for a video called “The Story of

Sustainable Stuff”…

MORE: AMERICAN WASTE | ANNIE LEONARD | CONSUMER CULTURE | DEFENSE SPENDING | DIOXIN EMISSIONS| DURABLE GOODS | INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY | LESLIE KAUFMANN | NEW YORK TIMES | NON SUSTAINABLEECONOMY | OVER CONSUMPTION | SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT | STEVE COHENS BLOG | SUSTAINABILITYMANAGEMENT | THE STORY OF STUFF

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Finally, A More Fuel Efficient AutoBy Steve CohenMay 21, 2009 | 4:49 p.m

The Obama Administration

has once again demonstrated

its commitment to progress on

sustainability issues. On May

19th, the President announced

dramatically improved auto

fuel efficiency standards. In

case you missed the

announcement, according to

the White House web site:

“President Obama today – for the first time in history – set in motion a new

national policy aimed at both increasing fuel economy and reducing greenhouse

gas pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in the United States. The new

standards, covering model years 2012-2016, and ultimately requiring an average

fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg in 2016, are projected to save 1.8 billion

barrels of oil over the life of the program with a fuel economy gain averaging more

than 5 percent per year and a reduction of approximately 900 million metric tons

in greenhouse gas emissions. This would surpass the CAFE law passed by Congress

in 2007 required an average fuel economy of 35 mpg in 2020.”

There is a great deal of discussion about the causes and possible effects of this new

policy. What is left of the American auto industry supports the new policy. As New

York Times reporters John Broder and Micheline Maynard recently wrote, this is

in part, “because they had no choice”. The auto industry has very

little political clout in American politics. While for many years they had

Michigan Congressman John Dingell protecting their interests, today they contend

with California Congressman Henry Waxman- who is eager to make up for lost

time in regulating auto emissions and gas mileage.

The other night, Jon Stewart did a short piece with a bunch of TV talking heads

arguing about how dangerous small cars are and that these new auto standards will

kill people. Other pundits argue that people will hold on to their old cars because

they will be bigger and more comfortable than the new ones. I suppose these are

the same people holding on to their SONY disc man or possibly their old eight

track tape cartridges and still refuse to move on to an IPod.


+EnlargeFlickr via david megginson



More Columns >> While these new regulations can be seen as a threat to the American auto industry,

there is a good chance that they represent the very opposite. They could be an

opportunity to reengineer the auto industry for a new era. The new regulations

will be “technology forcing”. They will require the auto industry to rethink the way

they engineer cars and focus on delivering more energy efficient autos. In a time

when concern about climate change and the volatile price of fossil fuels dominates

our consciousness- a car that looks good, isn’t expensive, handles well and gets 100

miles to the gallon would dominate the world market instantly. A great new car

could be just the thing to revive this declining industry.

Some people assume that we must trade off comfort, safety and style for fuel

efficiency. I suppose these are the same people who once assumed that small

computers couldn’t include much memory or computing power. Today’s laptops

have more computing power than yesterday’s mainframes. In the urban and

developed world we live in, the key to sustainability is rapid technological

development. While the goal of 35.5 miles per gallon seems ambitious, it is actually

reasonably modest. Twenty years from now, people will wonder why we were so

tentative when we began to develop fuel efficient vehicles.

In the long run we are going to need electric cars and a power supply based on

renewable sources of energy. Some day, the idea of “miles per gallon” will seem

quaint. In the short run, the steps taken by the Obama Administration are

essential. They demonstrate that we have discarded the bankrupt energy policies of

the most recent Bush Presidency. The auto and oil industries no longer dominate

this policy arena, and our nation’s credibility on the climate issue should be

restored.

The crisis in the auto industry provides an opportunity to reshape and revitalize

this critical part of our economy. For better or worse, this nation has developed its

land in a way that requires personal transportation. While we can and should

improve mass transit, we will always be dependent on the automobile. Under the

President’s new plan California and the rest of the country will have a single auto

mileage standard. I think that everyone is starting to understand that the future

belongs to the fuel efficient.

MORE: AMERICAN AUTO INDUSTRY | AUTO EMISSIONS | AUTO FUEL EFFICIENCY STANDARDS | BARACKOBAMA | BUSH PRESIDENCY | CAFE LAW | ELECTRIC CARS | FUEL EFFICIENT VEHICLES | GREENHOUSE GASPOLLUTION | HENRY WAXMAN | IPOD | JOHN DINGELL | JOHN STEWART | SONY DISC MAN | STEVE COHENSBLOG | “TECHNOLOGY FORCING”

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Mayor Bloomberg's Persistent SustainabilityAgendaBy Steve CohenJune 2, 2009 | 11:54 a.m.

The past several weeks we

once again saw the Mayor at

his best and at his worst. At

his worst, he berated a NY

Observer reporter who raised

the issue of term limits. At his

best, he demonstrated the

political courage to

experiment with banning cars

from parts of Times Square

and Herald Square, and

pushed hard, if unsuccessfully,

to get the City Council to tax

plastic bags.

Taxing Plastic Bags:

The Mayor would like to tax plastic bags to generate revenues and to lower

expenses by reducing the volume of solid waste. Every bag that’s tossed in the

garbage adds to the city’s waste disposal bill. On May 29, Celeste Katz and Frank

Lombardi reported in the Daily News that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

was opposed to the tax. In their piece they quoted a number of City Council

members, several of whom did not even have the guts to go on the record:

"We just don't want it," said one Brooklyn Council member, who asked not to be

identified because the budget negotiations are supposed to be confidential. "It's

just another tax on working people." "There's extreme resistance on our side of

the building [the Council side of City Hall]," said another member. "For me, it's a

nickel tax on food." Councilman Oliver Koppell (D-Bronx) said: "I personally

support it [the fee] because I want to discourage the use of plastic bags.

"Consumers can avoid the fee by bringing their own bags or using paper bags. But

the speaker is not a supporter. She's taking a position that is popular with many of

the members."

Koppell is, of course correct. This is a tax that can easily be avoided by asking for

paper bags, or bringing your own bag when you shop. Plenty of grocery stores have


+EnlargeFlickr via EVERYDAYLIFEMODERN



More Columns >> already begun to sell canvas shopping bags and even without the tax, you see these

cloth bags more often than before. The plastic bag tax is really a convenience tax.

In a sense it is similar to the deposit on beverage bottles. Many people simply toss

the bottle in the garbage and can’t be bothered to return it for deposit. Poor people

scavenge garbage bags for bottles, but still, many deposits are never recovered.

There are some differences between bottle deposits and the tax on plastic bags.

While bottle deposits can't be avoided, the nickle tax on plastic bags can be saved

by bringing a bag with you. The idea that this is a tax on food or the working poor

is completely absurd. This is the City Council at its inexplicable worst. This is

Mayor Bloomberg cleverly combining revenue generation with a sustainability

agenda. While in the end he had to give in on the plastic bag tax, you get the feeling

that we might see the proposal come up again some time in the future.

Banning Cars from Times and Herald Squares:

According to the Department of Transportation web site: “Mayor Michael R.

Bloomberg and Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan

are beginning a pilot program, "Green Light for Midtown," to reduce traffic

congestion throughout Midtown Manhattan via targeted improvements on

Broadway, focused at Times and Herald Squares.” The plan, which was put into

effect the day after Memorial Day, closes two sections of Broadway to vehicles,

from 47th to 42nd Streets and 35th to 33rd Streets.

According to the Department of Transportation, over 356,000 people walk

through Times Square each day, and even though “there are 4.5 as many people as

vehicles, only 11% of the space is currently allocated for pedestrians.” While the

change is not popular with some cabbies, most of the initial reaction has been

positive. The Bloomberg Administration considers it an experiment and will

evaluate its impact on people, traffic and business—before deciding whether to

make the street closings permanent.

Sustainability as Smart City Management:

What is characteristic about the Bloomberg Administration’s approach to

sustainability management is that it typically involves reducing environmental

impacts while creating economic wealth. In addition to reducing pollution and the

use of natural resources, they focus on cost effectiveness and the impact on New

York’s businesses, residents and visitors. This is not environmental protection for

its own sake, but sustainable development with the goal of improving the city’s

economic well being and quality of life. Two of the goals of New York City’s

sustainability plan illustrate this point: 1.) Planting a million trees reduces our

carbon footprint, but also makes the city cooler in the summer and a more pleasant

place to be. 2.) Making sure that a park is within a ten minute walk of everyone

who lives here does the same thing, while raising the value of real estate. Times

Square and Herald Square are ridiculously crowded for most of the day and night.

During some times of the day it’s nearly impossible to window shop, or even hold a

conversation, as you’re carried along on a moving river of pedestrians determined

to get to the next corner. It’s not clear how to fix the problem, but prohibiting cars

and trucks is worth a try.

The ban on vehicles also makes the point that the city does not need to defer to the

almighty auto in every instance. Sometimes pedestrians come first. In this

incredibly dense place, one way to reclaim some space for parkland is to take it

away from vehicles. Obviously, this must be done carefully and gradually, like the

experiment in mid-town Manhattan. The path to a sustainable city is not a straight

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Reflections on the Leadership of President ObamaBy Steve CohenJune 5, 2009 | 4:25 p.m

Watching President Obama in

Cairo the other day, I was

struck by his vision, ambition,

and his desire to bring about

change. Having voted for him

in the New York primary last

year and in the general

election in November, I

confess to having enormous

sympathy for him. I root for

him like he is the home team.

Since I focus my work on easy

issues like environmental

sustainability, I don’t pretend

to have any answers for the

more difficult dilemma of peace in the Middle East. As an American Jew, I have a

deep emotional attachment to the State of Israel, and I can’t help but be worried

about Israel’s security. However, I know that generations of Palestinian refugee

camps and years of armed conflict cannot be a path to peace and security. So, I

give the President enormous credit for his search for a new start. I guess it’s a

mark of his sense of balance and possibly the hopelessness of this effort, that he is

criticized by people on all sides of the issue. Answers to conflicts like this take

years of effort, toughness, clever strategic thinking, and patience-- and I think we

are beginning to learn that Obama is capable of all of this.

The day after his Cairo speech, President Obama visited the site of the Buchenwald

Concentration Camp with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and holocaust

survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and anti-war activist Elie Wiesel. Wiesel

spoke movingly of his father’s death in the camp and President Obama’s brief

remarks also resonated with deep emotion. "I will not forget what I've seen here

today," Obama said after touring the camp. "These sites have not lost their horror

with the passage of time …This place teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about

the spread of evil in our times.” It was a remarkable event, with words and images

that were truly memorable.


+EnlargeFlickr via jetheriot



More Columns >> It is early in the game, and the endless global news cycle and complex

interconnected economy makes it tough to even know what it means to be a leader

and change agent in these difficult times. In this wacky world, the President and

First Lady can’t even take in dinner and a Broadway show without someone

finding fault with them. Still, I see the seeds of greatness in the first half year of

this Presidency. The potential is all there: The obvious brainpower and ambitious

street smarts; the heart, soul and commitment of a man who knows who he is and

is comfortable with his place in the world. It’s too early to know how this story will

evolve, but the President and his new team have only made a few obvious mistakes

so far.

The contemporary tendency to constantly sit in judgment of every small thing our

leaders do is more than a little weird. The intense scrutiny of constant cable news

coupled with the Blogosphere, creates an endless demand for news and analysis.

This is happening at the very time when the business model that supported large

news staffs in great metropolitan newspapers and TV networks is in a state of free

fall. Our thirst for facts and analysis is growing at the same time our capacity for

supporting a profession responsible for gathering and assessing facts is shrinking.

In the case of President Obama, I think it is worthwhile to sit back and reflect on

both the accomplishments and the potential of his young Presidency.

First and foremost, we see a guiding intelligence and an effort at dispassionate

judgment that I didn’t think we’d ever see again in the White House. The process

that produces the modern President is so grueling and circus-like that it seems to

attract people who need the Presidency more than we need them to be President.

Why would a smart, normal, balanced person be attracted to a crazy process that if

you succeed only makes you a prisoner of a security bubble for four or eight years?

At times, it seems like a small miracle to see a talent like Barack Obama behind

that Presidential podium.

It’s also a talent that may have arrived in the nick of time. The strains on the planet

and the world’s economy as well as the danger posed by terror and weapons of

mass destruction require greatness in our leaders. So far, we’ve seen movement at

home with economic and energy policy, and efforts abroad, to redefine American

diplomacy and reinforce our national security. A lot has happened in a short period

of time- but a lot more still needs to be done.

MORE: ANGELA MERKEL | BARACK OBAMA | BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMP | CARIO | CHANGE | ELIEWIESEL | ENVIROMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY | GLOBAL NEWS CYCLE | MICHELLE OBAMA | PEACE IN THE MIDDLEEAST | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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Green Business and Sustainability Management Have Finally ArrivedBy Steve CohenJune 12, 2009 | 1:31 p.m

The $800 billion federal

stimulus package is only

slowly starting to kick in, and

we see the President pushing

to accelerate job creation over

the summer. The good news is

that a recent study of green

jobs by the Pew Charitable

Trusts indicates that the

Administration’s focus on

sustainability is sound

economics- and the government may very well be throwing its money in the right

direction after all. According to the Pew study:

“The number of jobs in America’s emerging clean energy economy grew nearly two

and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007… Pew found that

jobs in the clean energy economy grew at a national rate of 9.1 percent, while

traditional jobs grew by only 3.7 percent between 1998 and 2007. There was a

similar pattern at the state level, where job growth in the clean energy economy

outperformed overall job growth in 38 states and the District of Columbia during

the same period....This promising sector is poised to expand significantly, driven

by increasing consumer demand, venture capital infusions, and federal and state

policy reforms.”

The Pew study carefully defines green jobs to include employment in: “(1) Clean

Energy, (2) Energy Efficiency, (3) Environmentally Friendly Production, (4)

Conservation and Pollution Mitigation, and (5) Training and Support.” This is an

important and methodologically sound study and Pew is to be congratulated for

a thorough and creative piece of policy analysis. (O.K., the professor in me is

enough of a wonk to get a little thrilled by the quality of this work… what can I

say?).

I am seeing increasing signs of the mainstreaming of green business and its move

out of public relations and green washing into the world of hard-headed, realistic

business practice. As performance measurement systems have become ubiquitous

within organizations, management has focused on reporting cycles that include


+Enlarge Flickr via greenforall.org



More Columns >> quarterly, monthly, weekly and even daily reports. This focus on the present

creates an organizational culture and environment that makes it very difficult for

the issue of long term sustainability to be taken seriously. However, we are starting

to see the notion of sustainability added to the definition of effective management.

Organizations seek to maintain themselves. An organization that fails to take into

account the long term sustainability of the planet may survive while everything

around them dies, but the odds are against them. My view is that healthy

organizations depend, more than they think, on a healthy planet. Organizations

have trouble absorbing those long term considerations, but many of the best

managed companies are starting to learn how to act sustainably.

It comes down to the issue of waste and the relationship of efficiency to good

management. Why wouldn’t an organization strive to maximize the productive

benefit of all of the resources that they have access to? One way that successful

organizations thrive is by keeping the costs of production and service delivery as

low as possible without sacrificing quality. If there is a technology that can allow

you to use less energy, water or other materials in production, all things being

equal, why wouldn’t you use it? The issue is often one of competing capital

investments. The funds for reducing waste are the same funds needed to actually

produce the product or service you are selling. Shouldn’t the rate of return for

sustainability investments be analyzed the same way you would analyze other

investments? The mania for short term financial gain is both the enemy of

sustainability and also, as we learned in the recent economic crash, the enemy of a

sound economy as well. This was clearly articulated by Mindy S. Lubber, the

President of Ceres, a U.S. coalition of investors and environmental leaders in mid

September, 2008:

“The fiscal crisis on Wall Street is a painful lesson in how entire industries can

delude themselves into ignoring the most fundamental issues -- in this case, the

hidden risks from easy sub-prime mortgages. It also reveals the vast pitfalls of an

economic system obsessed with short-term gains and growth at all costs while

ignoring essentials such as building long-term shareholder value and protecting

the future of the planet. As we confront global climate change -- perhaps the

biggest challenge mankind has ever faced -- business and government leaders have

an opportunity to learn from the ongoing Wall Street debacle and get it right.”

I often hear arguments about the relative role of government and the private sector

in building a green economy. This is more of the same old tired debate about

socialism vs. capitalism. At the risk of stating the obvious, let me reiterate: The war

between the commies and the capitalists is over…. And the winner is…. both. We

need government to encourage "green" practices with regulation and incentives,

and; we need the private sector to actually do the work of building the green

economy. The Pew study indicates that over the past decade the green economy

has grown faster than the rest of the economy. The Obama recovery strategy is

built on the idea of using government funds to accelerate that growth. It makes

sense to me.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CAPITALISM | CERES | FEDERAL STIMULUS PACKAGE | GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE |GREEN ECONOMY | MINDY S. LUBBER | PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS | SOCIALISM | STEVE COHENS BLOG |SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT


Going green are definitelySubmitted by johnb on Mon, 07/27/2009 - 17:36.Going green are definitely growing each year. this is definitely a good thing. Why is this stimulus package taking so long. I heard on the news that only 10% of the stimulus money has been spent. this is not good.http://www.domic.infohttp://www.jenhorne.comhttp://www.homeremodelvideos.infohttp://www.greenbergfarm.comhttp://www.gardendiscount.infohttp://www.artyko.comhttp://www.myspassos.comhttp://www.stihotvorenie.infohttp://www.jeremyorr.infohttp://www.jenhorne.com

i think this will definitelySubmitted by johnb on Mon, 07/27/2009 - 17:37.i think this will definitely help the economy. Also will help the environment. Its good to have new jobs for this economy. I am glad to see it.Party Planning


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Let's Re-light the Lamp by the Golden Door: A Case for Immigration ReformBy Steve CohenJune 16, 2009 | 4:05 p.m

Recently, we read news

reports that a Sudanese

family, granted asylum in the

United States due to the war in

Darfur, was finally reunited

after a two year struggle with

U.S. Immigration. The

separation of these parents

from their four year old child

was heartbreaking, and an

example of an immigration

system that does not serve our

national interest.

I know that when most people

think of immigration reform they think of the issue of illegal immigrants and of

our border with Mexico. That is a problem that needs to be addressed, and I do not

want to minimize the importance of that issue. Even though illegal immigrants

take jobs that American citizens would not accept and at salaries citizens would

not tolerate, the issue of immigration remains wrapped in fear for many

Americans. There is the fear that an immigrant will take your job. There is the fear

that an immigrant is a terrorist and a danger to our security. Despite these fears, as

long as there is a tourism industry, global trade and jet travel, there will be

relatively free movement of people and goods around the globe. Sealing our

borders is a fantasy and it’s an idea that doesn’t serve us well.

As long as we have poor nations and rich nations, people from the poor ones will

try to immigrate to the wealthy nations. My grandparents came from impoverished

Russia and Poland at the start of the twentieth century, and I like to think the deal

worked out well for my family and for America as well. I remember reading John

F. Kennedy’s book “A Nation of Immigrants”, back in junior high school and

thinking that my family was part of what made America a great country. America’s

willingness to open the door to poor and ambitious people from other parts of the

world is what built this country. I know that some of this "immigration idealism"

is a myth, but a lot of it is true. American history has had its share of brutality.


+Enlarge Flickr via Esparta



More Columns >> Slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, and violence against newly arrived

immigrants are prominent examples of our capacity for cruelty. But the march

toward a more perfect union has proceeded, even if the path has been far from

direct. At the heart of our national vision is this idea of American opportunity,

which is delivered through a unique combination of individualism and community.

A critical part of our nation’s unique quality is its ability to welcome and absorb

immigrants. It was never all sweetness and light. Immigrants were abused and

oppressed and they are to this day. But they built communities, helped each other,

and eventually were brought into what Mayor David Dinkins once called “this

gorgeous mosaic”. Not the melting pot of pure assimilation, but something more

interesting where assimilation is tempered by retention of some of the older

customs and cultures brought here by immigrants. The balance between foreign

and American is in many ways the story of America: Steak and potatoes, seasoned

with bagels, tacos and sushi. America transforms its new arrivals and is itself

transformed by each wave of immigration.

The issue of immigration must be understood in the context of the global economy

and this nation’s long term role in that economy. Our three hundred million people

cannot possibly outmuscle the sheer human force of China and India. We have

already completed our “demographic transition”. Just as in Europe and Japan, if

left to our native population, our birth rate would no longer replace our current

population. In traditional agrarian societies, healthy children are a form of wealth

and social security. Children have a positive economic function in a family and are

an economic asset. In modern, developed nations, children become economic

liabilities. We raise families for love and gratification, but not for their economic

benefits. As the economic role of children has changed, birth rates in the developed

world have gradually dropped below zero population growth. In the long run, in a

fully developed world, we will see this phenomenon everywhere. However, in the

near term, and for the foreseeable future, we will continue to see large-scale

population growth in poorer nations.

What is America’s unique long term niche in the global market place? I think of the

Apple computer box that got delivered to my office last year that said “Designed in

California, made in China”. That’s it in a nutshell. We have to be the place that

specializes in brainpower and creativity. Freedom is not simply a political value

here, it is an economic asset. We need to attract the best creative and scientific

talent in the world and welcome them to America. Our way of life, entertainment,

educational and natural resources can make this the best place on Earth to live,

work and play. To attract the brainpower and talent we need we must make it

easier to come here and stay here if a person has drive and talent. It needs to get

easier for immigrants to come to America again.

I am not advocating that the door must be open with no limits. We need an

immigration policy that attracts the world’s best and the brightest. America’s great

strength in the global economy is that we have long allowed people to settle here

from other parts of the world. That is not the case in China and Japan and in many

other places in the world. Coupled with our strengths in media, communications

and education, we can be the most exciting and cosmopolitan place in the world.

An important part of that will be a sophisticated and strategic immigration policy

administered by a competent, flexible, and agile immigration service.

MORE: A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS | ASYLUM | DAVID DINKINS | GLOBAL ECONOMY | GLOBAL TRADE | ILLEGALIMMIGRANTS | JOHN F. KENNEDY | MELTING POT | POPULATION GROWTH | STEVE COHENS BLOG | SUDANESE |


TOURIST INDUSTRY | “DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION”

Article IV Section 4Submitted by StokeyBob on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 20:15.I think they should uphold the rule of law and govern by the rules set forth by the United States Constitution, as they swore they would with their oaths of office.Back in the sixties the government came into the schools and brainwashed us with the idea we needed to control the population because it was rising so fast. They said the roads would become crowded and we would run out of things like water.They unleashed abortions, birth control pills, and other forms of Family Planning.To allow the country to be over run with the criminals in businesses illegal labor while the criminals in the government aid and abet the invasion is a travesty against mankind.They have seen to it our children were killed to control the population at the same time allowing the world to export their population problems here. What about our sacrifices, many made against our will?????P.S. We still haven't recovered from the last time the criminals in business were allowedto bring in their slaves.

So where is the "case for immigration reform"?Submitted by Icarus5 on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 21:57.I was hoping to find a rational argument supporting the "open the flood gates" cause, but this article didn't provide one. There isn't much to argue against here because there isn't much of an argument in the article. How does the rest of the article relate back to the first paragraph? Am I missing something? The immigration debate is more about a conflict between age groups than anything else: those who are in their 50s and 60s understand "immigrants" to be cheap nannies, yard keepers, carpet cleaners, and people who wash clothes and do other messy jobs for almost nothing, while anyone under 50 views immigrants as those people who were hired by the older people for pennies because the older people knew the immigrants didn't have rights and were financially desperate. There is a good reason why U.S. citizens don't want to work the jobs performed by illegal immigrants: the jobs pay less than minimum wage because they are performed bydesperate people with almost no rights who aren't able to unionize.If there weren't desperate immigrant workers to choose from, the messy jobs would have to pay reasonable wages otherwise the jobs simply wouldn't be done. Isn't it odd that far left liberals want to simultaneously raise the minimum wage and make the minimum wage irrelevant by importing desperate immigrant workers who havehistorically almost always worked for less than the minimum wage?


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The Impact of Technology on Political CommunicationBy Steve CohenJune 23, 2009 | 4:49 p.m

Watching the mass impulse

toward democracy in Iran over

the past week has been

alternately inspiring and

terrifying. The power and

clumsiness of the state never

fails to scare me and the

courage and intensity of the

public in the street continues

to inspire. Something is

different about political

participation in these early

years of the 21st century. In

part, we are seeing the impact

of technology on political

processes.

The power of mass images is not a new thing. In the 1960’s and onward, images of

wealth in the west eventually exposed the weakness of the communist regime

running the old Soviet bloc. There is the story, perhaps apocryphal; of Nikita

Khrushchev narrating a film of Harlem in the 1960’s to demonstrate poverty in

America. Instead, his poor, beleaguered constituents focused on the

nylons hanging on backyard clothes lines and the number of fine autos in the

street, and saw wealth rather than poverty. Then there was that famous video of

the “tank guy” darting to and fro in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago, literally

placing his body in the path of the machine of state. The transformative power of

the mass media has changed governance and made it more difficult for the state to

wall off the outside world.

In the past two years, we’ve seen the transformative impact of the internet and

cellular technology. Instead of a handful of news photographers hiding to capture

images at Tiananmen Square, we now see millions of people in the street, cell

phones in hand, taking increasingly high quality videos and photos of state

oppression. Every day the pictures from Iran appear in graphic detail on our





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screens. In the book 1984, George Orwell prophesized that Big Brother would

watch over us. Now, it looks like we get to watch over Big Brother too. The benefit

of a world with no privacy may very well be a world with no secrecy.

There are now four billion cell phones in use throughout the world, and many of

them can capture and transmit images. When coupled with social networking

websites, they make millions of people both producers and consumers of

information. While the information on the web is difficult to verify and easy to

manipulate, it is a fact of modern political life.

In the Obama presidential campaign here in the United States we saw another

example of the transformative impact of the World Wide Web. According to the

Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas:

“…3 million donors made a total of 6.5 million donations online adding up to more

than $500 million. Of those 6.5 million donations, 6 million were in increments of

$100 or less. The average online donation was $80, and the average Obama donor

gave more than once.”

The mobilization of the public through the web has managed to overcome the

anti-democratic impact of money in our electoral system. When the United States

Supreme Court ruled that political campaign contributions were a form of speech

that could not be limited, our ability to regulate the role of money in politics was

effectively ended. The use of the web to raise campaign cash first came to

prominence during Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and was raised to an art

form during the Obama campaign. The impact of the web on political fundraising

is the most significant change in political campaigning since JFK beat Nixon in

their first TV debate back in 1960.

The impact of technology on political communication is not a new phenomenon.

Obama, like Jack Kennedy before him, managed to master a new technology before

any other politician. FDR set the pattern when he learned to use the radio to

communicate directly with the public during his fireside chats throughout the

Depression and World War II.

The internet and cell phones add a new dimension to political technology; they are

interactive media. In addition to the images presented on the web, the internet

allows people to quickly spread ideas, information and organize political protest.

Information comes to the public and from the public as well. Efforts to jam and

shut down these technologies are nearly always overcome by hackers and clever

political organizers. In the case of Iran, no one can predict the future or even the

immediate outcome of this conflict. But something is changing in politics.

Perhaps it is as President Obama remarked recently, quoting Dr. King:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice’ “I believe that.

The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness

to the Iranian people’s belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”

Bearing witness may not be enough, but it’s a start.

MORE: 1984 | BIG BROTHER | CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS | CELL PHONES | FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT |GEORGE ORWELL | GLOBAL COMMUNITY | HOWARD DEAN | INTERNET | JOHN F. KENNEDY | JOSE ANTONIOVARGAS | MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. | MOBILIZATION | NIKITA KHRUSCHER | POLITICAL TECHNOLOGY |PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA | RICHARD NIXON | STEVE COHENS BLOG | TECHNOLOGY | TIANANMEN SQUARE |WORLD WIDE WEB

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Another Step on the Long March to Global Climate PolicyBy Steve CohenJune 29, 2009 | 11:23 p.m

On June 26, 2009, the House

of Representatives took the

historic step of passing the

first piece of U.S. legislation to

reduce emissions of

greenhouse gasses. While the

bill, like all legislation, is not

perfect, it is a giant step in the

right direction. The most

important provisions of the

bill require:

• Reductions in greenhouse gases by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83

percent by 2050 through a cap-and-trade program.

• Electric utilities to produce at least 12 percent of their power from renewable

sources by 2020.

• Reductions in greenhouse gasses from new coal-fired power plants.

• New buildings to be 30 percent more energy-efficient by 2012 and 50 percent

more efficient by 2016.

The bill also authorizes $1 billion a year to develop carbon-capture and storage

technologies.

The Republicans are ferociously propagandizing this bill as a job-killing tax that

raises the cost of energy and will destroy the American economy. The close vote of

219 to 212 in the House indicates that a lot of people are buying this tired

argument. In the interests of political cover, 40 Democrats in marginal districts

were allowed to join with the all-but-nine Republicans who opposed this bill. My

gut tells me that this inside-the-beltway mind-set is misreading American public

opinion and that a "no" vote on this bill will eventually come to be a badge of

dishonor, rather than the safe vote some representatives believe it to be.

The American public understands that global warming is a real problem and they

also understand the need to develop sources of energy that do not require fossil

fuels. They are correctly worried that we do not know how to build a green

economy and that the high costs of shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy


+Enlarge Flick via cliff1066



More Columns >> will be difficult for our economy to handle. But the problem with the same old

anti-tax mantra that is coming from the same old political dinosaurs is that it

misses the point. People get the idea that we need to invest in new and cleaner

forms of energy. The average person knows that we can’t maintain the status quo.

They may not like it, but no one thinks the transition to a sustainable economy can

be done for free. It will require investment.

We need to accelerate the pace of development of renewable energy. We need to

force the development of the technology of carbon capture and storage. This can’t

be done as long as fossil fuels are as inexpensive as they are today. If capital is to

flow into these new technologies, government must help ensure that the full price

of the use of the fuel is included in the price that people pay for energy. The

environmental impact of fossil fuel use creates costs that all of us must pay. It costs

money to remedy pollution, ecosystem destruction and global warming. The

cap-and-trade regulatory scheme provides a way to create a dollar value to pay for

these costs. A direct carbon tax is another, probably simpler way of doing the same

thing. In any case, by raising the price of fossil fuels we make renewable energy

more cost competitive.

In the long run, fossil fuel prices will rise. Fossil fuels are finite, and as they get

scarce and harder to dig up, they will get more expensive. For all practical

purposes, solar power is infinite. Eventually, as we get smarter about how we

capture and store solar energy, it will come down in price. Unfortunately,

eventually takes too long. We have lots of fossil fuels left on earth, and climate

change is already under way.

Many people do not like this new law. Some environmentalists feel it does not go

far enough. Some business lobbyists think it goes too far. Like all legislation in the

American political system it represents a compromise. To build support among

moderates, some of the original provisions of the bill had to be watered down. This

is typical lawmaking in our political process, and is of little concern. As I have

written elsewhere, public policy does not attempt to solve problems, but to make

them less bad. For example, homicide is down dramatically in New York

City—from a high of over 2,000 per year in the 1990's to around 500 last year. The

problem is less bad, but is far from "solved." The families of those murdered

continue to suffer. Social security provides a second example: When the original

Social Security Act was passed in the 1930s, many important provisions were

omitted and then added in the next half-century or so. Lots of people were left out

and lots of important benefits couldn’t generate a political majority at first. It took

until the 1960s to add health care for seniors when Medicare was finally enacted. It

took until the 21st century to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare.

Environmental legislation typically follows the same incremental path. That is why

it is so critical that we take the first step.

It is important to stand back and understand the importance of this step. In 2007,

Senators Lieberman and McCain fell a few dozen votes short in their effort to enact

national climate policy. The recent vote in the House was close, and victory was far

from automatic, but it was achieved. The difference was Democratic control of the

Congress and the effective leadership of President Barack Obama. Obama,

Representative Henry Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went all-out to

secure this win. While the battle in the Senate will be equally difficult, a similar

dynamic will be in place. The success of the president’s agenda depends on this

win. The survival of Democratic majorities in Congress depends on the success of

this agenda and the president, who is pushing it. If these senators and

Who Put the Senators inCharge?


representatives hope to be returned to power in 2010 and 2012, they cannot afford

for Obama to fail. Fortunately for them, Obama’s agenda is doing pretty well.

When seen alongside victories on the stimulus bill and the budget, this climate and

energy bill must be seen as another sign of a presidency that is beginning to show

signs of success. In the era of the endless news cycle and infinite media sources,

this is a small miracle.

MORE: POLITICS | BARACK OBAMA | CAP-AND-TRADE PROGRAM | DIRECT CARBON TAX | EMISSIONS OFGREENHOUSE GASES BILL | FOSSIL FUELS | GLOBAL WARMING | GREEN ECONOMY | HENRY WAXMAN |INFINITE MEDIA | JOE LIEBERMAN | JOHN MCCAIN | MEDICARE | NANCY PELOSI | SOCIAL SECURITY TAX |STEVE COHENS BLOG | SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY

Before we tax carbon we should stop subsidizing it.Submitted by Icarus5 on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 23:53.Taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the air is one of the most heavily subsidized activities in the United States. To get a sense of how much we like to subsidize greenhouse gas emissions, just compare the cost of a gallon of gas in the U.S. to a gallon in Europe. In Europe on any given day, gas costs 3 to 5 times as much at the pump as it does in the U.S. This is because European nations do not subsidize greenhouse gas emissions like we do in the U.S. In fact, the largest and most expensiveproject ever implemented, which receives hundreds of billions of dollars annually from taxpayers (whether they know it or not) is the U.S. interstate highway system, which is essentially one giant subsidy for greenhouse gases. Carbon is put into the air to build the roads, reroute them, maintain them, clean them, police them, repair them, use them,demolish them, and the roads themselves are used to ship billions of pounds of carbon to local gas stations so the carbon can be released into the air and contribute to more global warming.We live in a time when trillions of dollars of taxpayer money is spent to pull billions of pounds of carbon out of the ground and put it into the air every year, while other people on the fringes of society get attention for coming up with absolutely feeble ideas to take carbon out of the air and put it back into the ground. Even worse than this, efforts are entertained to track the carbon through all its many complicated twists and turns in the economy so that it can be monitored and taxed on the demand side thousands of miles from where the carbon was extracted from the ground and so "carbon emission reduction credits" can be sold like the Pope used to sell indulgences to sinners worried about their afterlives.There is one word for it all: absurd. If we as a nation are truly concerned about greenhouse gas emissions, we will first stop directly and indirectly subsidizing them withtrillions of dollars annually. Then, we will tax greenhouse gases in the most efficient and effective way possible: as tariffs on the import of carbon into our country and as taxes on the extraction of carbon where and when the carbon is removed from the ground.Emission reduction credits and the other nonsense ("New buildings to be 30 percent more energy-efficient by 2012"? Does anyone out there even know what this means?) isadvocated by politicians who want to complicate everything because they don't want people to know that they are pansies afraid of standing up to the oil industry.

Turning the CornerSubmitted by Adam Cherson on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 11:23.The ACESA is certainly a turning of the corner and should be heralded as such. To thinkthat the job is done and the rest will take care of itself would be a silly mistake. This legislation is going to require the same level of focus and energy in its execution as its passage (which by the way ain't done yet either). We also need a similar effort and comprehensive legislation on the national grid. So, this is not yet Miller time on climate change and won't be for a while. Thank God for all the environmental grads coming upto lend a hand. Will work for food......


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Reflections on Security, Democracy and CommunityBy Steve CohenJuly 7, 2009 | 3:26 p.m

President Obama is in Russia

trying to reduce our nuclear

arsenal and once again we

hear that he is naïve and is out

to endanger our security. Let’s

step back and think about this

for a moment and review the

fundamentals. What makes us

safer and more secure?

July 4th passed and after the

rocket’s red glare and the fireworks (thankfully not bombs) finished bursting in

air, our flag and our nation remained safe and secure. Here on the West End of

Long Beach, New York, flags were everywhere this past weekend. This is a patriotic

small city, with plenty of public participation in local politics, and a town, like New

York City that came back from the depths of near ruin in the 1970’s. Part of what

makes these places work is our sense of ownership of our town, state and nation.

When that sense of ownership and pride is present- communities thrive and our

nation works. Democracy is a central ingredient of our quality of life and our

prosperity. I know this is a strange time to be writing about prosperity, but despite

the difficult time our economy is going through, our families, communities,

businesses and democracy remain hard at work. Our security in a very real way is

built on our democracy.

The media thrives on bad news and conflict, and there is no shortage of those

things these days. People are suffering. But crises and tough times motivate

heroism and selflessness too. In Iran, we see the hunger for self determination

creating a movement that keeps changing its shape and form, but persists

nonetheless. We are learning that the Iranian people and the regime that rules over

them are not one and the same. Here in America, people are responding to the

economic crisis by digging into their own pockets and savings to help neighbors

and families in need.

In the modern world what unites us is this hunger for a safe haven where it is

possible for the individual to achieve great things and where we can raise a family


+Enlarge Flickr via rockmixer



More Columns >> where our children have the chance to live up to their potential. This hunger is

what brings people into the streets of Tehran and was the force that led our

founders to fight a war for independence. In this country these values shape the

common ground we saw from time to time in the Presidential campaigns of John

Mc Cain and Barack Obama. Despite the certainty claimed by our political rhetoric,

it is not clear how we accomplish freedom and security in this world of imperfect

human beings .

Walking on the beach among friends and families this July 4th, I couldn’t help but

believe that the great majority of Americans have found a safe haven. While too

many Americans do without, and too many people around the world are without

hope, the American dream of community and freedom endures. Many continue to

seek it. You see it in many places and in many forms. Early in the morning in Long

Beach, you can watch dozens of teenage lifeguards train in a set of coordinated

lifesaving exercises. Like clock work they race into place and practice pulling a

"drowning" swimmer back to shore. Then only five hours later you see the same

actions, only with greater intensity as a rip tide pulls two swimmers away from the

beach. If you think our country is falling apart, know that the spirit of public

service is strong in our military, our police and fire departments, as well as in

Americorps, the Peace Corps, and on the sands of Long Beach New York. Our

ability to be free as individuals is built on a foundation of community. Just like

those teenage lifeguards carrying a line of rope to those drowning in the sea, our

community provides a lifeline for individuals whose life or security is threatened.

These days, there is a fair amount of consensus about what needs to be done when

we see someone drowning. Economic and political life is a little more complicated,

but there is actually more agreement than the cable news channels would like to

admit. It was the Bush Administration that started the financial bailout in the fall

of 2008. Right wing pundits may call President Obama a socialist, but he did not

begin the expansion of government’s role in the banking industry- that was a policy

he inherited. Similarly, it now seems clear that the Bush Administration was

moving away from their initial pro-torture stance, as they had second thoughts

about the wisdom and legality of their actions. And of course, we now see that

while the Obama Administration has banned torture, it is struggling to find a place

to imprison captured terrorists- the same dilemma faced by their predecessors.

Our values as a nation, and the President's role as a global and national leader,

push our Presidents to confront the same set of issues, from the same institutional

vantage point. Even two Presidents as different as Bush and Obama end up seeing

some issues through the same lens.

While our polarized politics seems committed to maintaining the veneer of

unbridgeable differences, the reality of our common interest continues to reassert

itself. This does not mean that our views are identical and there are not serious

differences in how we might achieve our goals. Globally, there are clear

distinctions in values and priorities. Within the United States these distinctions are

far less pronounced, but real. While President Obama seems to recognize these

distinctions, he is, I believe correctly, focused on trying to find and build on the

common ground that we share. He is trying to do this at home and abroad. In a

complex, interconnected and dangerous world, this effort at communication and

understanding is a welcome change.

Which brings us back to this issue of security. President Obama is not considering

dismantling or reducing our military. He is, like his predecessor, trying to figure

out how to make it more effective. Unlike his predecessor he seems to have more


interest in the other tools of national interest: diplomacy, economics, and

communication. If we assume that we have nothing in common with the nations

we oppose, these other tools are useless. If, however, we find out, as we have, that

the Iranian people are actually more opposed to their President than we are, then

maybe our security can be served by building on those values we share, rather than

those we do not.

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The Attack on Climate Policy BeginsBy Steve CohenJuly 17, 2009 | 12:32 p.m

As expected, the counter

offensive to climate change

policy is well underway. The

coal industry is gearing up its

lobbying effort and even Sarah

Palin is calling cap and trade

“cap and tax”. Her view is that

regulating greenhouse gasses

will cost rather than create

jobs. There will be much more

of this, and the 24-7 news

media and the blogosphere will attempt to turn this into a conflict that can attract

attention and sell advertising.

However, the fact remains that the green economy is creating jobs. Just as America

has transformed itself from an industrial economy to a higher-end information-

and service-oriented economy, we are now at the start of another

transformation—to a green economy. In June the Pew Foundation released a

study on this transformation, which concluded that:

The number of jobs in America’s emerging clean energy economy grew

nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and

2007…Pew developed a clear, data-driven definition of the clean

energy economy and conducted the first-ever hard count across all 50

states of the actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments

that supply the growing market demand for environmentally friendly

products and services.

This does not mean that the debate will be settled by these new facts, but hopefully

this information will have some influence on matters. Senator John Kerry’s

response to Governor Palin’s op-ed referred to the job creating capacity of a

green energy economy. While it is never a good idea to predict the future, I think

that a new era of climate policy is about to begin. The public understands the

reality of the issue and has begun to appreciate the vulnerability of our economy to

the current energy supply system.

As I have argued before, if handled carefully, climate and energy policy can help


+EnlargeFlickr via Harry Limey



More Columns >> modernize our economy’s technological base and ultimately increase our standard

of living. Our goal should be to ensure that the percentage of our Gross Domestic

Product (G.D.P.) devoted to energy expenditure is as low as possible. According to

the United States Energy Information Agency of the Department of Energy, there

has been a fair amount of volatility in this indicator over the past forty years. The

first year that the federal government reported our expenditures on energy as a

percent of G.D.P. was in 1970. That year we spent eight percent of the G.D.P. on

energy. This grew to 11.6 percent in 1979 and peaked at 13.7 percent in 1981. In

1999 it dropped to an all time low of six percent, due to a fast growing economy

and low fuel prices. However, in the 21st century, this percentage has tended to

grow. It jumped to seven percent in 2000 and to 8.8 percent in 2006, the last year

for which we have government data.

With our shrinking economy and increased fuel prices the amount of our nation’s

wealth devoted to energy may be growing once again. The question we need to

address in the long run, is how do we reduce the price and also the unpredictability

of energy costs? Fossil fuels are subject to a wide variety of unpredictable cost

factors—ranging from increased use of automobiles in China to Middle East

politics. In the long run, however, the cost of fossil fuels is bound to grow. While

the Earth retains huge quantities of fossil fuels, we are not making any more of the

stuff. Each day that we burn fossil fuels less of them remain. Fossil fuels will

continue to get more difficult and more expensive to extract, and the

environmental impact of extraction will not let up. While fuel extraction can be

made more cost-effective and environmentally friendly through the use of

technology, the fundamentals remain: fossil fuels will become more expensive over

the next century. In contrast, look at the cost of computing. According to Moore’s

Law, a truism first popularized by Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, the

processing power of microchips doubles every 18 months and the cost of

computing drops every year. Anyone who buys a laptop knows that they keep

getting more powerful and less expensive. Solar technology has the potential for

the same type of cost reductions over time. The basic fuel of solar power, the sun,

will always cost the same to tap into—zero. Solar cells and batteries will only get

less expensive as a mass market develops and as technology improves.

What is most impressive about the way Congress is approaching climate change

policy is that they are linking it to the use of energy. The Waxman-Markey energy

and climate bill recently passed by the House of Representatives not only sets a

regulatory cap on carbon emissions, it also encourages energy efficiency and

renewable energy to ensure that we can actually achieve these caps without

shutting down the economy. While the start up of the green energy economy will

require investment, the pay-off potential is enormous. In the case of the emerging

climate policy, the anti-tax mantra of the Republican right is in reality an

anti-investment policy. It is unfortunate that they are “rounding up the usual

suspects,” but I continue to hope that the approach taken by Waxman-Markey

emerges as the national consensus.

MORE: CAP AND TAX | CLIMATE CHANGE | FOSSIL FUELS | GORDON MOORE | GREEN ECONOMY |GREENHOUSE GASES | GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT | JOHN KERRY | MOORE’S LAW | SARAH PALIN | STEVECOHENS BLOG | UNITED STATES ENERGY INFORMATION AGENCY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY


Tapping into solar power is not freeSubmitted by Icarus5 on Fri, 07/17/2009 - 21:18.Compare "The basic fuel of solar power, the sun, will always cost the same to tapinto—zero" to the next sentence "Solar cells and batteries will only get less expensiveas a mass market develops and as technology improves." Does anyone else notice acontradiction in saying that the cost is zero and then that the cost will decrease?Tapping into solar power is not free at all, and it is misleading to say so. In reality, tapping into solar power is extremely costly. In fact, a kilowatt of electricity generated from solar energy actually emits more greenhouse gases than a kilowatt of electricity generated from coal or oil. This is because the production and disposal of the photovoltaic cells themselves has a carbon footprint. Unlike in La La Land, sound policy in the real world must be based on sound science. There needs to be at least a touch ofreality in there somewhere.Implementation of a cap and trade system for green house gases is absurd. As the embarrassing "meltdown" of the financial markets has proven, we are unable to even track our own money accurately and honestly. Does anyone seriously believe we will be able to track greenhouse gas emissions truthfully? Such a system would provide thousands of new jobs consisting of "greenhouse gas accounts" whose sole purpose would be to come up with creative new ways to cook a new set of ridiculous books.All of this cap and trade talk is a bunch of nonsense coming from politicians who are afraid to stand up to the oil companies.


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Principles, Values and LeadershipBy Steve CohenJuly 27, 2009 | 2:12 p.m

While it may be my own

warped sensibility, I find a

common thread in the

following recent news items:

• President Obama’s treatment

of Harvard Professor Gates’

recent conflict with the

Cambridge Police,

• Obama’s struggles with

health care policy,

• Mike Bloomberg’s insistence

on Mayoral control of education, and;

• The cascading pay-for-play political scandal in New Jersey.

The common thread is the importance of principled leadership in public life, and

the often difficult choices that principles create for our leaders.

President Obama, having experienced racial profiling personally, initially provided

unequivocal support to his friend, Professor Henry Louis Gates. It is easy to

identify with the horror and indignity of being arrested for disturbing the peace in

your own home. Coupled with the issue of racial profiling it seemed to be a clear

miscarriage of justice. However, as more details emerged, it appeared that both

the police and Professor Gates shared some blame for the conflict. President

Obama then faced a clash of principles- his abhorrence of racial profiling and his

desire to move the country to a new era of race relations. His condemnation of the

police was an uncharacteristic burst of heat from our typically cool chief executive.

However, upon reflection, he sought to resolve the issue in his characteristically

thoughtful and direct way. He spoke to both the arresting officer, Sgt. James

Crowley and to Professor Gates, and went before the media to accept blame for

escalating the conflict with his own rhetoric. He then invited the two men to the

White House for a beer and the opportunity to get to know each other in more

pleasant surroundings.

We, of course react with sympathy to the President’s sense of self-confidence and

his honesty, and perhaps even develop a deeper understanding of both the impact

of racial profiling and the difficult job our police have on the front lines of public

safety and criminal justice. At the heart of all this is a President with a deep set of


+Enlarge Flickr via JTHammond



More Columns >> principles, clear values and an almost unparalleled ability to communicate his

views.

If only health care, the issue that he tried to focus our attention on the night of his

recent press conference, was as simple as the issue of race! Which is only to say

that these are two of the most complicated issues now before us. The President

wants to bring health care coverage to the nearly 50 million people who have no

coverage. He wants to do this without adding to the tax burden of working and

middle class Americans. He wants people to have the ability to choose their own

health care provider. He thinks the current system is too expensive. These beliefs

and principles are difficult to reconcile with each other. The health care system

may be too expensive, but it is allowing people to live better and longer lives than

ever before. How much would you pay for a better and longer life—for yourself and

for your family? How do we, as a nation, make decisions about limits on health

care? We don’t want to ration health care, but without limits, costs can only

continue to escalate.

Principled leadership requires, just as with the Gates-Crowley conflict, that there

be an explicit discussion of competing needs and values. The health care issue is

more complicated than the conflict in Cambridge because of the vested interests

and dollars involved in the outcome. Too many lobbyists and advertising dollars

will be devoted to distorting the truth, although the need for clarity and frank

discussion will remain. At some point, the President will need to invite the

antagonists of the health care debate to the White House for a beer too. In fact, he

might want to invest in a couple of kegs and maybe some stronger stuff as well.

This conversation will result in a more-than-one-beer thirst.

Closer to home, here in New York City, Mayor Bloomberg seems to have finally

gotten the pathetic New York State Senate to agree to maintain Mayoral control of

the city’s schools. The Mayor has been steadfast in pushing this key element of his

agenda. Just as he has in financial management, sustainability, public safety, and

public health, the Mayor defined and then adhered to his principles. His consistent

articulation of his core sets of beliefs and principles is at the heart of his success as

Mayor and as a leader. You need not agree with everything he does to admire his

leadership. He may be accused of arrogance and a short temper, but no one thinks

he simply goes with the political flow. Like President Obama, we have come to

expect truth telling from our Mayor.

Also closer to home we see that too many public officials in New Jersey are for sale.

Not only is the public trust violated but we are simultaneously treated to the

horrifying spectacle of religious leaders laundering money. Governor Corzine may

be discovering that he has made one too many accommodations with the corrupt

power brokers that actually run New Jersey and now his own political future is in

question. There is always a line between the deals you make to accommodate

legitimate interests and those that are made as a result of dollars passed along in a

cereal box. Our leaders have to make sure they can tell the difference between

Captain Crunch and cold cash.

The people who run our nation and its institutions must make difficult choices,

and those choices are typically best made when they are guided by an underlying

sense of clear principles and ethics. This is true of elected leaders, but is just as

important for people leading all of our organizations.

The key to effective management and inspired leadership is principled and

consistent leaders: People who persist in the face of adversity. We see it in

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Who Put the Senators in Charge?

The Debate: Duane Says Little, Diaz Attacks His Leadership

Thompson's Options: Senator (Risky),Comptroller (Safer), Mayor (TK)

Same-Sex Marriage Advocates Say They Go to the Senate, Potentially, With 'Momentum'

A Crushing Legacy of Bush

Cash for More Than Just ClunkersBy Steve CohenAugust 1, 2009 | 2:57 p.m

Our inability to predict policy

outcomes was once again

confirmed this week by the

wildly popular Cash for

Clunkers program. The

program provides between

$3,500 and $4,500 to anyone

who trades in an older auto for

a shiny new car that has better

fuel efficiency. One billion

dollars was originally allocated

for the program, which was designed to sunset on November 1 or whenever the

money ran out. Whoever designed the program figured it would last until

sometime in the fall, but instead it lasted about a week. Obviously, in the land of

the $800 billion stimulus and the half-trillion-dollar bank bailout, a billion dollars

is just a drop in the bucket.

So what to do now that the money’s run out? This is so obvious, it’s almost absurd:

Add a few billion dollars to the program. Do it now. On July 31, the White House

agreed to continue the program and the House of Representatives took $2 billion

from the stimulus fund to buy more clunkers. The goal is to get car owners to come

into auto showrooms looking for new, more energy-efficient vehicles, but if we

really want to juice up the economy, we need to

start using this form of subsidy to encourage other

forms of energy-efficient retrofits. Let’s do it for

air-conditioners, for example, or any other

higher-priced, energy-draining appliances with

longer shelf lives. While some consumer habits

might be wasteful and unnecessary, incentivizing

more responsible, energy-conscious consumption

patterns would benefit everyone.

Energy efficiency has enormous potential for growing our economy. While it’s

important to develop renewable sources of energy, we can also work to reduce our

carbon footprint through energy efficiency. Simply put, we can reduce the price of

most goods and services by reducing the amount of energy it takes to produce

those goods and services. Talk about an economic stimulus!


+Enlarge



More Columns >> New York Times reporter Kate Galbraith recently wrote about a new

energy-efficiency study from consulting firm McKinsey and Co. that

reported: “An investment of $520 billion in improvements like sealing ducts and

replacing inefficient appliances could produce $1.2 trillion in savings on energy

bills through 2020. … Such a program, if carried out over the next decade, could

cut the country’s projected energy use in 2020 by about 23 percent.”

So where to get that initial $520 billion investment? According to the McKinsey

report, we now spend about $10 billion a year on energy efficiency, and the

stimulus package added another $10 to $15 billion. Some of the extra funds could

also become available once cap-and-trade carbon-dioxide regulation puts a price

on carbon, allowing us to assign a dollar value to carbon-dioxide reduction. A

dollar invested in energy reduction might net more than a dollar’s worth of carbon

reduction, and companies may then see the benefits of investing their scarce

capital in energy efficiency. Some of the $520 billion in funding could also come

from energy-efficient building codes, such as those that have already been

implemented in California. Those codes stimulate energy efficiency because

builders can’t get certificates of occupancy without proving that they have

complied with the codes, and over time the price of compliance for builders has

come down as the market for energy-saving building materials has grown.

But we can also stimulate investments in energy efficiency by requiring greater

energy efficiency in our appliances. Funds for energy-efficiency programs will need

to come from creative public policies, such as an expanded Cash for Clunkers

program, as well as tax laws that reward efficiency while punishing waste. Taxes

on wasteful energy use will discourage inefficiency while also generating capital to

be used toward the $520 billion called for in the McKinsey report.

Cash for Clunkers demonstrates that consumer behavior can be influenced by

well-designed incentives. Let’s build on this success by copying it in other arenas

besides automobiles. And the Senate should now follow the House’s lead and

throw a few more billion dollars at those clunkers crowding our driveways and

highways.

MORE: POLITICS | CASH FOR CLUNKERS | ENERGY EFFICIENCY | ENERGY INCENTIVES | ENERGY POLICY |GREEN INCENTIVES | STEVE COHENS BLOG

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With Friends Like These… MidwesternDemocrats Fight Climate PolicyBy Steve CohenAugust 7, 2009 | 3:53 p.m

On August 6th, ten

Midwestern Democratic

Senators sent a letter to

President Obama that began

the hardball phase of creating

climate policy as it moves

from the House’s

Waxman-Markey bill to

Senate deliberations in the

fall. In this letter, the Senators

insist that climate change

legislation must protect U.S.

manufacturers from unfair

foreign competition. They do

not want U.S. manufacturers

to face competition from foreign industries that might not have to pay the cost of

compliance with new climate rules.

The letter writers are Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Debbie Stabenow

(D-Mich), Russell D. Feingold (D-Wisc.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Evan Bayh

(D-Ind.), Robert P. Casey (D-Pa.), Robert C. Byrd (D-W.V.), Arlen Specter (D-Pa.),

John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.V), and Al Franken (D-Minn). In the letter, these

Senators express:

“… strong support for the inclusion of a package of initiatives, including a border

adjustment mechanism, to ensure the viability and effectiveness of any climate

change policy crafted by Congress… As Congress considers energy and climate

legislation, it is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level

playing field for American manufacturing…

Measures to ensure that U.S. manufacturers do not bear the brunt of our climate

change policy could include: short-term transition assistance in the form of rebates

provided to energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries; negotiating objectives

requiring any international agreement to address manufacturing competiveness;

effective means to measure, monitor, verify, and hold countries accountable for

emissions reductions; and policies that promote investments in energy efficient

and clean technology manufacturing and help the sector retool for the clean energy


+Enlarge Flickr via eflon



More Columns >> economy.”

This is a key issue, and if not addressed it has the potential to split the Democratic

Party in two and to eliminate the possibility of climate regulation both here and

throughout the world. The underlying cause of this issue is the uneven pattern of

economic development worldwide. The developed nations built their economies on

fossil fuels and never had to worry about greenhouse gases. Nations just now

building their economies, such as India and China, want the same “right to

develop” that the world’s wealthy nations had back in the 20th century. The

perspective of American manufacturers is that if they have to comply with these

new regulations, then everyone else should as well. They assume that compliance

with greenhouse gas regulations will raise the price of their goods and services.

They propose tariffs as a method of equalizing prices and “leveling the playing

field.” Tariffs, of course, interrupt the free trade of goods, restrain competition and

ultimately reduce wealth.

It seems to me that the solution is not to raise the cost of imported goods, but

rather to use the tax code and innovative federally funded research to lower the

cost of compliance with new global warming rules. We should not automatically

assume that cleaner manufacturing is inherently more expensive. While this tends

to be true when we retrofit old factories with pollution control equipment, we can

encourage the construction of new facilities that have a smaller carbon footprint

from the start. But where will the money come from for this?

One source might be the funds raised by the auction of emission allowances under

Waxman-Markey. A second source requires that we break the taboo on new taxes

and levy a new tax on fossil fuels. This money could then fund a tax deduction or

credit for investments in technology that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In

addition, we can reduce emissions from Midwestern manufacturers by targeting

new renewable energy sources for manufacturing. We can also fund research on

carbon capture and storage that will enable us to burn fossil fuels without

impacting climate systems.

Rather than wasting time protecting old and dirty factories, we should fund the

research needed to revitalize American manufacturing. We should use the tax code

to encourage investment in manufacturing facilities that can compete with the

foreign factories that rely on cheaper labor and less stringent environmental laws.

We should work to build lower-cost, non-fossil fuel energy sources and more

automated factories engineered to reduce waste and emissions.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, to see these Senators “rounding up the usual

suspects.” It is really time to break this depressing cycle of rust belt protectionism

and anti-environmentalism. One look at Detroit tells you how successful this

strategy has been. If we are going to get the developing world to build their

industries according to green principles, the United States must lead by example.

We need to develop green technology, implement it at home and provide

incentives for adopting it in the developing world.

This is not an argument for allowing our industrial base to disintegrate. We need to

stimulate private investment in that base and directly fund the research and

development required to build a competitive but sustainable economy. While this

letter to the President is simply an opening gambit in the intense bargaining

process that awaits us this fall, it is both pathetic and short-sighted. These folks

know better, and rather than providing vision and forward-looking leadership,

they have decided to protect their flanks. It is high time that we focus on the

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Measuring Public Opinion on Environment and Sustainability: How Conventional Wisdom Gets That WayBy Steve CohenAugust 11, 2009 | 10:45 a.m.

The False Trade Off

Since 1985, the Gallup poll has

asked survey respondents to

trade off environmental

protection against economic

growth. This past spring, for

the first time, more people

chose economic growth than

environmental protection.

(See Gallup graph) The data

is an accurate reflection of public opinion, and there is no question that

conventional politics frames the environment as an impediment to economic

growth. However, in my view, this survey question taps into opinion that is based

on a false premise. The survey question not only assumes that environment and

economic growth are separate concepts, but also that by focusing on one you must

sacrifice the other. During an economic downturn, many trade-off questions

trading just about anything against economic growth will result in a preference for

economic growth. Still, this question needs to be updated and asked in a different

way. The problem with the existing survey question is that as long as we draw our

wealth and sustenance from the natural environment (you know, things like food,

air and water), economic growth will depend on environmental quality. While our

political dialogue is often built around the assumption that we can trade off one

against the other, we really can’t. No biosphere = no wealth.

It is true that businesses in China and other parts of the world have generated

economic growth and short-run profits by disregarding development’s impact on

the air, land and water. As we discovered in the United States, this approach is a

short-run strategy. Unfortunately, the costs of clean-up will eventually need to be

paid. Every time you pay your water bill, you are paying for environmental clean

up here in New York. While survey researchers love the longitudinal data they can

obtain when they ask the same question every year, it is not clear that people are

really responding to the same question today that they answered in 1985. The issue

of economic sustainability and the green economy was not discussed or understood


+View Slideshowvia gallup.com



More Columns >> back in the mid 1980’s. In 2009, companies as diverse as Wal-Mart and Apple

Computer have integrated green principles into their business planning. The idea

of sustainable business practice was virtually unknown in 1985. Gallup’s web site

provides a clear picture of public response to this trade off question from

1985-2009 (See the graph in the slide show above).

It would be interesting to see what might happen if Gallup’s survey asked

respondents if they believed that economic growth and environmental quality were

incompatible or interconnected. It would also be interesting to see what might

happen if the response of “equal priority” was given as a potential response to

Gallup’s survey question. Since 1985, this answer is only coded when volunteered

by the respondent. Although the question is attempting to force respondents to

choose between environmental protection and economic growth, there are clearly

some people who do not accept the environment-growth trade-off. Such forced

trade-offs questions are a staple of survey research methodology, but the trade-off

must be meaningful for the technique to be an effective measure of real public

opinion. In this case, I am not sure we know what opinion we are measuring.

Perceptions of Global Warming

Another widely reported environmental opinion indicator is Gallup’s measure of

perceptions of global warming. Gallup’s question measuring perceptions of global

warming asks the public to judge news coverage of the issue. The question does not

ask the respondent if they believe that global warming is a serious issue. Rather, it

asks them to do two things: First, think about climate coverage in the news media;

Second, judge whether or not global warming’s seriousness has been exaggerated

by media coverage. If I were being surveyed, I’m not sure what I would say. I think

that global warming is a serious issue, but I believe that everything in the media is

exaggerated. I think that exaggeration is the media’s middle name. So I might be

seen as a “climate skeptic” in this survey, because I think that the seriousness of

the issue of global warming is exaggerated by the media. Does the question asked

by Gallup below, measure attitudes toward global warming, or attitudes toward the

media?

The data indicates a decline in the percentage of people who believe that the media

reports on the seriousness of global warming are correct, and it points to an

increase in the percentage of people who think that the seriousness of the issue is

exaggerated in the media.

Gallup is, of course, quite expert in measuring public opinion, and the measures in

their surveys are uniformly reliable and valid. However their environmental

surveys seem to be almost routinely misinterpreted by the media. Gallup’s own

analyses tend to be quite precise and accurate. For example, their analysis of the

question on the seriousness of global warming focuses on news coverage of the

issue, and they report that most Americans accept the facts of global warming.

Unfortunately, there are less objective observers. For example, on August 10th,

The Drudge Report provided the following interpretation in their teaser:

“GALLUP: Americans Growing More Skeptical Of Global Warming...”

Public Support for Sustainable Development

In fact, the data indicates a fair amount of consistency in the structure of public

opinion on environmental protection. While issues like global warming can be

difficult for people to see and feel, the American public knows it’s a real issue and

is concerned about it. Concern for more visible pollution is even stronger, with


over 80% of the American public routinely expressing concern about air,

water and toxic pollution.

The media seems to be entranced by the idea that the public’s support for

environmental protection declines whenever the economy falters. Some parts of

the media can’t seem to shed the idea that the environment is a John Kerry,

wind-surf and brie effete liberal luxury item. The fact is that most polling,

including Gallup’s own, reports consistent public support for environmental

protection. We are also seeing growing signs that the public understands the

connection between environmental protection and economic sustainability.

President Obama has put this idea at the center of his plan to revitalize the

national economy, and polling indicates widespread acceptance of the policy of

“green economic growth”.

I am not arguing that every effort to protect the environment adds to our wealth

and creates jobs. But the argument that one must always be prepared to trade off

environment for growth is outmoded. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlanNYC 2030

considers clean air, water, energy efficiency and access to park land as

preconditions for the city’s continued economic growth. A clean city provides a

high quality of life and attracts new economic activity. The Mayor’s plan for New

York’s future rejects the old environment-growth trade off, and so should the rest

of us.

MORE: APPLE COMPUTER | CHINA | ECONOMIC GROWTH | ENVIROMENTAL PROTECTION | ENVIRONMENTALPROTECTION | GALLUP POLL | GLOBAL WARMING | GREEN ECONOMIC GROWTH | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG |STEVE COHENS BLOG | SURVEYS | WAL-MART

BeesSubmitted by aprilwordwolf on Wed, 08/19/2009 - 05:35."The survey question not only assumes that environment and economic growth are separate concepts, but also that by focusing on one you must sacrifice the other."This is an important point. It's been shown that nature does a lot of work for us. Forinstance, we need bees to pollinate plants for us so that we have food to eat. If beesdidn't do this we would have to do this ourselves which would cost a phenomenal amount of money and put prices up sky-high.April


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Trying to Understand the Health Policy DebateBy Steve CohenAugust 14, 2009 | 11:11 a.m.

Since I am a long way from

being a health care expert, I

have tried to stay away from

the increasingly nasty and

difficult health policy debate

now raging throughout

America. As a parent and as

someone who is treated for a

variety of typical getting older

ailments, I find myself in

regular contact with the health

care system, but also confess

to finding it well beyond my

comprehension.

As a student of organizational management, I am amazed by the incompetence

and waste I see, but also by the outstanding skill, dedication and improved

systems that are clearly evident as well. Members of my family have found

incredibly high quality treatment for heart disease at St. Francis Hospital in Long

Island, and my family has also experienced wonderful care at the Hospital for

Special Surgery, Mt. Sinai Hospital and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital here in

Manhattan. Our personal physician is terrific, and like many fortunate Americans,

my employer, Columbia University, provides excellent, though increasingly

expensive, health insurance coverage.

Despite, or maybe because of the price tag, the health care system seems to be

doing a good job of keeping me and my family healthy. Health care costs continue

to rise in the United States, and when compared to other systems, I am told that

our outcomes are no better. The issue of cost control is incredibly difficult. First,

while we can educate ourselves on treatment choices when we or a family member

get sick, picking a health care treatment option is more complicated than buying a

sofa, car or computer. First, we are emotionally engaged in the decision due to the

ultimate downside of making the wrong choice. I might be willing to make

decisions based on cost effectiveness when buying a car or a computer, but when

bringing a member of my family to the doctor, I want the best possible health


+Enlarge Flickr via wcm1111



More Columns >> care—regardless of price. I am not willing to settle for cost-effective health care.

Of course, it is insurance that gives me the luxury of ignoring price. Still,

asymmetric information, unpredictability and emotion make it difficult for

market-based cost pressure to work very well in the case of medicine. Competition

does not seem to be an effective means of cost control. From where I sit, the price

keeps going up, but modern medical technology is allowing many of us to live

longer and healthier lives. The question for our society is then, how high are we

willing to allow the price to rise? In a world of finite resources, what are we willing

to give up to be able to afford all of this improved health?

There are also two other fundamental questions that must be addressed when it

comes to the health care debate – the first one ethical and the second practical.

The ethical question is how do we extend health care insurance to the 50 million

Americans without coverage? The practical question is how do we pay for this

coverage? Even in the current economic crunch, America is simply too wealthy a

country to allow 50 million people—over 15% of our population—to go without

health care. Logically, there are two ways to fund this: 1. Increased taxes, 2.

Increased efficiency in the health care system. We probably need both, but for

decades we’ve been unable to figure out how to do it. I confess that I have no idea

of what might work, and would like to hear some reasoned debate on the topic.

While I am not a health policy expert, I do know something about politics, and it is

the politics of health care that many of us find distressing and disgusting. The level

of misinformation and anger is distressing. The sleazy manipulation of the

discussion by interest groups that are simply trying to defend their dough is

downright disgusting. This is a difficult and wrenching debate. We need high

quality cost-benefit analysis, creative thinking and honesty. Instead, we are getting

cooked numbers and shrill, uninformative lies.

Although I am satisfied with the health care I receive, I agree with President

Obama that the system is not sustainable and requires reform. I strongly believe

that people without health insurance must be provided with access to health care.

Despite the noise and dishonesty in the media, I think there is a growing consensus

about the need to restrain cost increases and about the importance of extending

insurance coverage as far as possible. While it may be too late for a dignified, civil

debate on the merits, perhaps we can still have one that provides real information,

clear choices and improved health policy.

While the noise and anger level is unpleasant, I give President Obama credit for

continuing to bring people back to the basics of the problem we must address. My

read of the debate from the outside is that we don’t really know how to solve this

problem. Therefore, we need to set up a reform process that changes the system,

but that also permits mid-course corrections for the mistakes we are bound to

make. That may be too much to ask for, but I think that is what we need.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | COLUMBIA PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | HEALTH CARE |HEATH INSURANCE | HOSPITAL FOR SPECIAL SURGERY | MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY | MT. SINAI HOSPITAL |QUALITY COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS | ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL | STEVE COHENS BLOG


Good News !Submitted by hsr0601 (not verified) on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 16:10.Good News !A staff writer at The New Yorker and some experts have examined Medicare data from the successful hospitals of 10 regions, and they have found evidence that more effective, lower-cost care is possible. Thankfully, the provisions in the reform include more expansive policies than they have.Please be 'sure' to visit http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/opinion/13gawande.html?hp for credibleevidences !Some have followed the Mayo model with salaried doctors employed, Other regions, too, have found ways to protect patients against the pursuit of revenues over patient.And a cardiac surgeon of them said they had adopted electronic systems, examined thedata and found that a shocking portion of tests were almost certainly unnecessary, possibly harmful. According to analysis, their quality scores are well above average. Yet they spend more than $1,500 (16 percent) less per Medicare patient than the national average and have a slower real annual growth rate (3 percent versus 3.5 percent nationwide). Surprisingly, 16 % of about $550 billion (the total of medicare cost per year) is around $88 billion per year, except for Medicaid (total cost of around $500 billion per year), medicare 'alone' can save $880 billion over the next decade.In addition, under the reform package, along with the already allocated $583 billion, the wastes involving so called "doughnut hole" , the unnecessary subsidies for insurers, abuse, exorbitant costs by the tragic ER visits etc are weeded out, the concern over revenue (below) might be a thing of the past.(( Net Medicare and Medicaid savings of $465 billion + the $583 billion revenuepackage = $1048 billion - the previously estimated $1.042 trillion cost of reform = $6billion surplus - $245 billion (the 10-year cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursementrates so physicians don’t face big annual pay cuts) = the estimated deficit of $239 billion))In modernized society, the business lacking IT system is unthinkable just like pre-electricity period, nevertheless, the last thing to expect is happening now in the sector requiring the best accuracy in respect to dealing with human lives. Apparently theerrors by no e-medical records have spawned the crushing lawsuits (Medical malpractice lawsuits cost at least $150 billion per year), and these costs have led to the unnecessary tests, treatments, even more profits so far. And in different parts of the U.S., patients get two to three times as much care for the same disease, with the same result.Thank You !

The HEALTH CARE CRISIS writ largeSubmitted by cmbdoc on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 14:22.The HEALTH CARE CRISIS, writ large, is on most everybody’s minds these days.Perhaps that’s because it’s in the news so often. Pundit after Pundit takes a swing at theproblem. But I’ve yet to see an analysis that makes any sense. We’re all pointing ourfingers in the wrong direction – straight up, at the insurance companies. It’s as if therewe all were, the unsuspecting public, walking along innocently, eating our usual lunch:McDonald’s 4 patty cheeseburger and slurping down all 2600 calories of that BaskinRobbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake. Meanwhile calling the wife to ask what we’rehaving for dinner…. When there’s a tweet from our Blue Cross/Shield agent that ourfamilies’ health insurance premium is going up again. What! Why is this happening? It’snot fair! Maybe the agent found out our son got the part of Santa Clause this yearbecause he didn’t need any pillow inserts to play the role in the high school musical“Santa, You've Got Mail”. Or because the wife wears Moo Moo’s all the time becausenone of her regular clothes fit any more and she is growing so rapidly it doesn’t makeany sense to buy anything until she reaches her maximum size? (XXXXX large)Few know the real meaning of the term “crisis”. It is actually a medical term, used moreoften in the early and middle part of the last century. If the doctor told you that your sickfather was in crisis, that meant daddy was going to start getting better by morning or hewas going to die. Well, that sounds about right. Access to and affordability of healthcarein America in 2009 is about as screwed up as it can be. And, one doctor’s opinion, anew “public option” is not going to fix things.Hell, we already have 4 “public options”. Medicare, the public option for seniors passedin 1965, is on track to bankrupt the country by 2017, as the 78 million baby boomersbecome eligible for and begin to use it in large numbers. Bill Clinton already has had hisheart attack and open heart surgery and he was barely 60. 78 million senior citizens allexpecting the miracles of modern medicine, including but not necessarily limited to stemcell infusions are on the way. Look out! There aren’t enough doctors or nurses orhospital beds or medical miracles to handle that load.Then we have Medicaid and SCHIP, which most doctors won’t accept because thereimbursement rate is too low to cover their “overhead” let alone buy them a new Lexusevery year. The VA system is so overwhelmed by returning veterans suffering from


PTSD, burns and amputations that older veterans with diabetes and heart disease can’tget in anymore. You want to go to the doctor at the Wadsworth VA in West LosAngeles? The line starts on Ventura Blvd in the San Fernando Valley.Health insurance in America is too expensive for the same reason that flood insuranceis too expensive in New Orleans and hurricane insurance is too expensive in SouthFlorida and the Bahamas. Try buying earthquake insurance in California if your housesits on the San Andreas Fault. If we all took as poor care of our cars as we do ourbodies, who could afford auto insurance…Donald Trump? Bill Gates? T. BoonePickens? Covering “pre-existing” medical conditions is a non-starter. Could you buy anew homeowners policy from State Farm if your kitchen was already in flames and thefire engines on the way? Duh! Could your family buy a new insurance policy on your lifeif you were already dead? There is a great deal of sympathy out there for all the millionsof Americans who can’t afford health insurance. My question for all of thoseunfortunates: are you taking really good care of yourself so you won’t get sick orinjured? Is your diet low salt and fat, and high fruits and vegetables, fish and poultry?Are you walking once or twice a day? True or false: You’ve quit smoking, you alwaysfasten your seatbelts, and you imbibe a lot more water than booze. Hey these things areimportant. And you know what? If everyone in America lived that way, that would solvethe healthcare crisis and make all those *&%#$ pundits shut the f… up!


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The Roof is Caving In: Time to Find Funds for InfrastructureBy Steve CohenAugust 21, 2009 | 11:21 a.m.

A few days ago, at the West

181st Street station of the No.

1 subway line, the roof literally

caved in. According to the

MTA’s website:

“Due to a collapse of the brick

façade from the ceiling above

the tracks at the 181st Street

station, 1 train service will

remain suspended throughout

the rest of today, Monday,

August 17th, 2009. Service through this area will be suspended until further

notice. At approximately 10:30 p.m. Sunday, a section of the brick architectural

façade fell 35 feet to the track bed below. A downtown 1 train was in the station,

but did not sustain any major damage. No customer injuries were reported. The

cause of the ceiling collapse at the 181st Street station is under investigation.”

To anyone who has ever been in that station, the cause of the collapse didn’t hold

much mystery—the ceiling has been leaking for years and the collapse was

completely predictable. The station, over a century old, is a landmark which once

featured chandeliers and an almost elegant décor that in recent decades has

suffered relentless neglect.

Mayor Bloomberg used the ceiling collapse to make the critical political point that

the MTA still does not have a capital budget, and that this near tragedy needs to be

seen as a warning:

“It just goes to show the M.T.A. has for decades underfunded what they needed to

do,” said Mr. Bloomberg at a news conference on Tuesday. “This could have killed

somebody. Fortunately, it did not. It goes into the inconvenience class rather than

in the class of something that could really leave a terrible, permanent scar. But

nevertheless we have to have — and I have been saying this all along — a capital

budget to maintain what we have.”

The MTA said that a repair of the roof was approved in 2008 and funded last week.

My guess is that now they’ll need a little more money for this repair than they


+Enlarge Flickr via chrisbastian44



More Columns >> originally approved. We should also add the cost of commuter delays and the

funds spent on shuttle busses to the cost of the repair.

I have written before about the lack of capital funding for mass transit and

the system’s over-reliance on fares for its operating budget. Since a lack of

common sense seems to be a problem in Albany, I don’t know how we are going to

find any political courage up there, but we really need to find a way to pay for the

upkeep of this essential service.

There are three critical pieces of infrastructure that make a city as dense and

complex as New York work. One is the water and sewage system, the second is the

power system and the third is the subway system. It costs more to maintain these

pieces of infrastructure in a city as built up as ours than it does in less crowded

places. A lot of our infrastructure is old and in need of maintenance. Some of that

infrastructure maintenance is well financed. Some, like our mass transit system, is

not.

If you look at your water bill, you’ll notice that it keeps going up. The same is true

of your gas and electric bill. Some of these increased charges are due to the costs of

higher priced raw materials like fuels, but some of it pays the increased cost of

infrastructure maintenance and expansion. In the case of mass transit, the logical

way to fund the infrastructure of those willing to venture underground is to tax

people driving in cars on the surface. That can be done with gasoline taxes,

increased registration fees, tolls, and taxi surcharges. Charging higher mass transit

fares makes little sense since it will simply encourage more people to drive and

increase traffic on our already clogged roadways.

There are also less direct ways of funding mass transit, such as a commuter tax or a

tax on businesses, and in some ways it doesn’t really matter where the money

comes from, as long as it comes from somewhere. This requires political courage.

Like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz, our state government needs an

injection of fortitude. The need for the courage to look ahead and to raise funds to

secure our future is not limited to Albany. We could use some of that kind of

thinking in Washington D.C., where new taxes have become the third rail of

American politics.

One would like to think that the roof falling in would be a signal that change is

needed. In China and Europe, government is investing in infrastructure at a

ferocious rate. Here, we need to keep our money private to make sure we can drive

our aging SUVs on deteriorating bridges to half empty shopping malls. I know that

I’m simply showing my New Yorker’s bias, but it really might be time to rethink

our approach. We caught a break up on 181st street this week. We might not be so

lucky next time.

MORE: 181ST STREET STATION | CAPITAL FUNDING FOR MASS TRANSIT | COMMUTER TAX | MICHAELBLOOMBERG | MTA | POLITICAL COURAGE | POWER SYSTEM | SEWAGE SYSTEM | STEVE COHENS BLOG |SUBWAY SYSTEM | TAX ON BUSINESS | WATER SYSTEM

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What is the Role of Government?By Steve CohenAugust 27, 2009 | 1:23 p.m

Since 1981, I have taught a

graduate course called Public

Management at Columbia

University’s School of

International and Public

Affairs. I care a lot about what

government does and how it

does it, and I know that

government has a reputation

for mismanagement - some of

it deserved and some not.

At the heart of the current health care debate there is discussion of the “public

option”. This would be a government-run and subsidized health insurance

program. This is the policy option that in some nightmarish visions of health

reform would drive private health insurance providers out of business, raise our

premiums, ration health care and “pull the plug on grandma.”

Obviously, there is a consensus that in America, we do not want government to be

the sole provider of health services. As we continue to explore the issue of

government’s proper role in our economy and in our communities, let’s remember

two points: 1) Government has no monopoly on management incompetence and;

2) Government provides many services efficiently and effectively. Call 911 and the

fire, police, and emergency services arrive in a hurry. Turn on your faucet and

water comes out of the tap, or place your garbage in a bag by the street and a big

white truck will come and take it away. These are the routine tasks of government,

completed largely at the local level.

Let’s take a look at management in the private sector. According to the American

Bankruptcy Institute (reported in the Kansas City Business Journal on August

25, 2009), “more than 30,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy protection in the

first half of 2009, up 64 percent from the nearly 18,500 in the same period last

year”. This means that even during a good year, over 35,000 American private

businesses go under. Of course, sometimes they fail due to bad luck and market

conditions. Not all bankruptcies are caused by incompetence, and not all

incompetence leads to bankruptcy.


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While government programs cannot go bankrupt, not all of them are as quick to

respond as the FDNY. Consider the recent “Cash for Clunkers” program. While we

may disagree on the value of the program (I thought it was a great idea), we can all

agree that its administration was awful. The problem started with a substantial

underestimation of the popularity of the program. Surprisingly, a one billion

dollar budget lasted for about ten days instead of the expected ten weeks. In

response, the federal government tripled the budget, but the managers of the

program took several weeks to ramp up for a larger effort.

The U.S. Department of Transportation was very slow to increase the size of the

staff needed to process the already overly-long application that dealers were

required to submit to receive their cash. On August 19th, Nick Bunkley and

Jack Healy of the NY Times reported that:

“The Transportation Department is tripling the number of workers handling

reimbursement claims for the program, which started July 24 and exhausted its

initial $1 billion in financing in a little more than a week. By week’s end, 1,100

people are scheduled to be reviewing the 13-page applications from buyers.”

Since over 435,000 cars were sold under the program, even with a larger staff,

each person was assigned to review about 400 applications. If the staff had not

been tripled in size each staff person would have had to review 1,200 of these 13

page documents. If we assume one person could review about two of these

applications every hour for a total of 80 a week (a number I’ve picked out of thin

air), it would have taken 15 weeks to authorize checks and who knows how much

longer before dealers actually got paid.

A superbly well-managed operation would have had a contingency plan in place to

deal with the possibility of high demand. Even a poorly managed organization

could have done better than the Department of Transportation. Once the

popularity of the program was established and the probability of extra funding

seemed high, why didn’t DOT move quickly to expand their staffing? The Senate

tripled the program’s budget on August 6th, so why did DOT wait two weeks to add

more review staff? While the size of the application form can be blamed on the

program requirements created by Congress, the inadequate number of review staff

was entirely DOT’s fault. While I recognize the constraints that government

managers must operate within, there is always a way around these obstacles if a

manager is both creative and aggressive.

What does all of this mean? It means that the central issue is effective

management, not socialized vs. private medicine. Bad management can take place

in any organization - in government, in non-profits and in the private sector. But

awful service need not last forever. I remember a visit to the Verizon Store shortly

after they developed the mass consumer cell phone business. During that visit I

was tortured by their bureaucracy for over three hours trying to arrange a family

plan. I felt like I was in the old Soviet Union trying to buy a loaf of bread. Over the

past year I’ve visited with Verizon a couple of times and was impressed by the

efficient, friendly and even high-tech service. Competition and good management

led to improved service.

As we approach the end game of the health care debate, we need to ensure that the


system that emerges encourages both competition and good management. This

does not preclude a public sector insurance provider, but it means that if we go

that route we need to ensure that it does not evolve into a monopoly. We also need

to consider the size and scale of the organizations that are developed to deliver

health insurance. While organizations that are too small do not benefit from

economies of scale, organizations that are too large can develop dysfunctional,

slow-moving bureaucracies. You know them—organizations like the U.S.

Department of Transportation, and the pre-2009 General Motors Corporation. My

concern about the health care debate is its focus on ideological litmus tests. A

better idea would be to pay attention to more pragmatic issues related to

cost-effective service delivery and effective, innovative management.

MORE: AMERICAN BANKRUPTCY INSTITUTE | CASH FOR CLUNKERS | COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S SCHOOL OFINTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS | FDNY | GOVERNMENT | HEALTH CARE | JACK HEALY | MANAGEMENTINCOMPTENCE | NICK BUNKLEY | PUBLIC OPTION | PUBLIC SERVICES | STEVE COHENS BLOG | U.S.DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION | VERIZON

DOT not necessarily to blameSubmitted by Icarus5 on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 12:38.Steve, I'd have to disagree with your assessment of the Cash for Clunkers program. It is easy in retrospect to point out that a contingency program should have been in place to hire new workers to process the increase in applications. However, the hiring, training, and retention of competent staff has always been one of the most challenging aspects of management. You give a back of envelope mathematical equation to show how long it takes to process applications, but you do not provide similar consideration to how long ittakes an organization to hire and train a new employee, even if temporary and even if a contingency plan is already in place. If DOT was able to hire and train almost 1,000 newemployees to process a 300% increase in applications for a program that is itself brand new, that may represent a major success story, even if car dealerships and customers find themselves waiting an extra month or two longer than they expected to get their checks. For almost any organization, public or private, hiring a new employee takes wellover 80 hours of the organization's time for boring but necessary things, such as selection, orientation, setting up payroll, setting up a health care plan, and additional resourcing for office space, a phone number, etc. To hire 1,000 employees could have easily taken over 80,000 hours of DOT's time. This is before the new employees are trained to process an application. As the saying goes, "the devil is in the details," and this tends to be true for any endeavor, whether or not there is a contingency plan.With regard to the health care discussion, the guiding principle should be simple: leverage the advantages of centralization to eliminate inefficiency. The sole focus of discussion should revolve around a single question: How can a nation-wide, centralized effort most simply and cost-effectively reduce the waste and inefficiency that currently exists? There are probably five or less key areas that could be addressed with the creation of narrowly focused policy and a narrowly focused program that would save society hundreds of billions of dollars annually and improve health care for all through better organization.


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Ecosystem Services Come to New York City: The Natural Way to Reduce PollutionBy Steve CohenSeptember 3, 2009 | 3:53 p.m

On August 27th, New York

Attorney General Andrew M.

Cuomo announced that his

office will provide $1.8 million

of a $7 million settlement with

a number of towns in

Westchester that had been

illegally dumping raw sewage

into the Bronx River.

According to Cuomo’s web

site:

“The funding will be provided to seven entities, including the Bronx

River Alliance, THE POINT Community Development Corporation,

the New York Botanical Garden, the New York City Parks Department,

and the Westchester County Planning Department, for “green

infrastructure” - natural systems, like wetlands, or engineered systems

that mimic them - that capture and treat polluted stormwater before it

reaches the river.”

The idea here is to use existing ecosystems to filter pollutants and protect streams

and other water sources. While some pollutants require artificially engineered

treatment systems powered largely by fossil fuels, many other pollutants, such as

human waste and conventional, non-toxic household waste, can be filtered with

natural systems powered by old-fashioned, solar-based photosynthesis.

It turns out that most pollution control equipment is not only capital-intensive, but

also expensive to operate and maintain. The good thing about the use of natural

systems as pollution control devices is that they tend to be cheaper to build and

much cheaper to maintain. The term currently being used to describe the practical

use of ecosystems to protect the environment is “ecosystem services.” A number of

scholars have worked to quantify the monetary value of these services, including

my colleague Geoff Heal at the Columbia University School of Business,

who is the co-author of a landmark 2004 National Academy study entitled,

“Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision Making.”



Cuomo.



More Columns >> This study pointed out in 2004 some indisputable facts that we later learned the

hard way during Hurricane Katrina: when we destroy natural ecosystems to

develop land, we also destroy the services that those systems provide for us. In the

case of New Orleans, the ability of the city to withstand the power of the hurricane

was impaired by the development of wetlands and islands that once served as a

natural buffer for the city. Heal and his co-authors pointed out that the economic

analysis that led to paving over these areas did not factor in the economic benefits

of the services provided for the city and its inhabitants by surrounding wetlands

and protected ecosystems.

In New York, we can see an excellent example of the importance of ecosystem

services. About 90% of the water we use in New York City comes from the

Delaware-Catskill water system, about 120 miles north of the city. Over the past

dozen years, the city has been able to purchase land and subsidize best

management practices for the watershed, avoiding the need for extensive filtration

of our upstate water supply. If, in fact, the federal EPA required us to filter this

water, it would cost about $8 billion to build the facilities needed to treat the

billion gallons of water New York City residents use every day. It would cost

between $300-400 million each year to operate these filtration facilities. Instead,

we spend about $200 million a year to preserve ecosystems and manage

our land use in ways that help keep our water supply clean naturally.

We are beginning to learn that the natural environment is more than something

nice to look at or camp in, that it actually does work of economic value that can

improve our quality of life. The irony is that one of the best ways to preserve the

quality of our countryside is to concentrate our population in cities and towns.

Redeveloping the “brownfields” of our inner cities can help preserve the

“greenfields” of the exurbs.

Our policymakers are starting to learn about and take advantage of the practical

value of ecological preservation and restoration. We see evidence of this every time

we turn on the tap water in New York City, and, thanks to Attorney General

Cuomo, we will soon see evidence of this in a cleaner Bronx River as well.

MORE: ANDREW CUOMO | STEVE COHENS BLOG

if only others were as smartSubmitted by Icarus5 on Thu, 09/03/2009 - 20:47.Not long ago there was a similar initiative proposed to LA City and it was narrowly defeated by the vote of one council member. Studies showed that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, not to mention lots of greenhouse gas emissions and oil, could havebeen saved every year by simply returning waste water to the uplands and letting it seepinto the ground instead of dumping into the ocean through outfall systems. Putting the water back into the ground through wetlands would have naturally filtered and purified the water, while making it accessible for use in the near future. It is rumored that ownersof one of the companies operating one of the existing treatment plants, sensing that revenues from their smelly and energy-intensive operation could come to an end, decided to lobby against the idea. Soon the phrase "toilet to tap" began circulating in themedia and the idea was killed by the city council by a single vote. Now LA residents can continue to pay more to enjoy water shipped to them across the desert from the Colorado River, which happens to receive the waste water from Las Vegas.


Ashley Dupre is not happy.Submitted by Braydon G on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 04:05.Ashley Dupre is not happy. Ever since she's been the subject of a media firestorm, shehas left the hustle (not an intentional joke) and bustle of the city, and gotten out of thepublic eye. The media has been hounding Ashley Dupre, calling her all sorts of names –though they do not realize the former call girl, who had an affair with Eliot Spitzer, wasjust the person there at the time and if she had found a different line of work, Spitzerwould have cheated on his wife and resigned the governorship of New York withsomeone else. Perhaps everyone should leave Ashley Dupre alone, get instant paydayloans and find a hobby.


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Civility in Modern Political LifeBy Steve CohenSeptember 14, 2009 | 4:07 p.m

The civility of our political

discourse was not helped the

other night when South

Carolina Representative Joe

Wilson called President

Obama a liar on the floor of

the Congress. Fortunately, his

outburst was followed by his

rapid apology and the

President’s quick acceptance

of that apology. I would like to

think that the follow-up may be evidence of a consensus that Representative

Wilson crossed a boundary that should be maintained.

As I watched the TV talking heads dissect the event, one resident wizard made the

point that the atmosphere in the Congress was relatively tame compared to Prime

Minister’s questions in the British Parliament. While that is true, it sort of misses

the point. In Britain the head of government is the Prime Minister, but the head of

state is the Queen. In Israel and many other Parliamentary democracies the head

of state is the President and the head of government is the Prime Minister. In the

United States the President is both the head of government and the head of state.

This means that President Obama’s role is not simply to manage the federal

bureaucracy, but to represent and symbolize the nation as well. He not only cuts

the budget, he is expected to cut ribbons too. In our democracy there is no King to

symbolize the nation’s history or culture. The President plays that role. He is both

Prime Minister and King.

I should mention that this does not make me a monarchist, or President Obama a

monarch. Last week I was quoted making the same point in a wonderful article

by the Associated Press writer Jocelyn Noveck on heckling in Congress, and I have

received a pile of e-mails explaining that America has no king. That is clear, but the

function of head of state and head of government is often split in most political

systems, just not in ours.

This combination can be confusing, and at times Presidents have tried to take

advantage of the dual role by arguing that those who disagree with their policy

positions are unpatriotic. That is of course completely false. A President’s policies





More Columns >> are fair game. In fact, it’s also OK to call the President a liar. It’s just probably not

something you should scream at him while he is speaking to a joint session of

Congress in front of 30 million TV viewers.

This has been a nasty political summer as evidenced by disruptions at Town Hall

Meetings on health policy and the absurd attack on the President for advising

school kids to stay in school, work hard and do their homework. While many of us

long for civility and respect in our political debates, it’s important to remember

that American political history has not always been characterized by mild

discussion and broad consensus. Back in 1804, at the start of the republic,

Alexander Hamilton died after being shot by Aaron Burr- possibly a low point for

political civility in the early days of our poltical system. In the mid-19th century a

complete breakdown of our political process led to the Civil War. According to

the web site of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, political dialogue

in the House was particularly contentious in the years leading up to that horrific

war, In fact,

“The most infamous floor brawl in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives

erupted as Members debated Kansas’s pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution late

into the night of February 5-6 [1858]. Shortly after 1 A.M., Pennsylvania

Republican Galusha Grow and South Carolina Democrat Laurence Keitt exchanged

insults, then blows….More than 50 Members joined the melee.”

The 20th century was no picnic either. More than a few of us remember the

discord at the -1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago as well as the many

moments in the 1960’s when orderly and symbolic civil disobedience descended

into disruption and violence.

In a world made smaller by low-cost information and communication technology

and made more dangerous by constant advances in the technology of destruction,

civility and peaceful methods of dispute resolution become more and more

important. I write this on September 11, 2009 and have been reminded all day of

the presence of evil in the world and the importance of civility and the rule of law

in modern life. In his famous June 1963 American University speech on the path to

world peace, John Kennedy spoke about the need for nations to develop safe ways

to resolve sharp differences and live in peace. JFK urged tolerance and civility

when he said:

“So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our

common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And

if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for

diversity.”

Health care, climate change, the economy and issues of war and peace dominate

national policy debates in our nation’s capital. There is a great deal of political

power and a boatload of money at stake for our Representatives in Washington,

their constituents back home and powerful stakeholders. The presence of these

powerful forces and vested interests make it even more important that the

discussion be civil and that all parties be respectful of each other. Despite the

attention he has garnered from his shout at the President, I am certain that

Representative Wilson wishes he hadn’t pushed the “send” button the other night.

My hope is that his fifteen minutes of national fame does not inspire others to

mimic his unfortunate outburst.

MORE: AARON BURR | ALEXANDER HAMILTON | BARACK OBAMA | BRITISH PARLIAMENT | CIVILITY | CLERK OFTHE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES | DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION | GALUSHA GROW | HEAD OF STATE |

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But Not a Drop to Drink: The Threat toAmerica’s Drinking WaterBy Steve CohenSeptember 16, 2009 | 11:41 a.m.

For those of us who worked

closely with environmental

professionals during the eight

years of the Bush

Administration, we know that

it was a time of declining

resources and reduced

political support for

environmental regulation. It

was demoralizing and more

than a little scary. Last

weekend an excellent piece of

environmental reporting by

the New York Times writer

Charles Duhigg highlighted

declining drinking water quality throughout the United States. While New York

City’s drinking water appears safe from the threats cited in the Times piece, it

provides a clear indication that it is quite dangerous to let our attention ever

wander from this critical issue and vital resource.

Summarizing his reporting Duhigg observes that:

“Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters

to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power

to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in

recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the

nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times

found.”

The Times has also created an excellent data base on violations of water

pollution rules and state enforcement of those rules. In this region, New York’s

legal authorities managed only 6.4 enforcement actions per 100 violations, in

contrast to New Jersey’s 53.5 per 100 violations. Connecticut was even worse than

New York with only 3.7 enforcement efforts per 100 violations.

Protecting our drinking water is a fundamental function of government. Just as we

expect our streets to be safe from crime and our nation protected from the threat of


+Enlarge Flickr via Sweet One



More Columns >> terrorism, our health and welfare also depend on the provision of safe water to

drink and clean air to breathe. This is basic and non-negotiable. A Times “quote of

the day” last weekend came from this piece, when West Virginia resident, Jennifer

Hall-Massey asked “How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but

not clean water?”

It is of course not an issue of technical competence, but profit and political will.

There is big money in the cable and internet business and plenty of competition.

Water supply is a public utility that is delivered by government and funded by use

fees and general revenue taxes. This monopoly means that we have no choice when

selecting a water supplier. Our water supply is also more fragile and vulnerable

than the infrastructure that delivers Internet and cable TV.

The cause of this attack on our water supply is untreated and poorly managed

industrial dumping of toxic substances. While this is rampant in the developing

world, America, from the mid-1970’s to the late 1990’s made enormous progress in

reducing these practices. Apparently, part of the lasting environmental legacy of

the Bush-Cheney years is the backsliding reported by the Times in this article.

The new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Lisa Jackson is making

the right noises about increasing enforcement, and I suspect the New York Times

piece will strengthen the hand of environmental professionals inside the agency

that are trying to push this agenda. The article also makes the point that the focus

on climate change may be pushing attention and resources away from more

traditional concerns such as water pollution. I doubt that is true, the real issue is

not enough resources are going to either issue.

In any event, the issue of clean drinking water has far more political potency than

climate change. Most of the impacts of global warming are in the future, and it is

difficult for the average person to understand the connection between cause and

effect. Moreover, the causes of climate change come from many places and the

impact will also be felt in many places. Water pollution is locally caused and felt.

The impact is nearly immediate and some of the impacts, like illness and skin

rashes, are very visible. Because climate change is a global problem that crosses all

borders, it creates real challenges for our planet’s political system which is based

on sovereign nation states. While some water pollution issues cross borders, in the

U.S. the borders they cross are mainly state borders rather than national ones.

We know how to keep our drinking water clean. We have laws that require it and

institutions capable of administering those laws. What we need is the political will

and resources to use those institutions and enforce the laws we have. Unlike

climate and health care, the structure is already in place and a national consensus

was established long ago to ensure clean drinking water. The challenge to the

Obama administration and the EPA is clear. What is less clear is if they are up to

the task.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | BUSH ADMINISTRATION | CHARLES DUHIGG | CLEAN WATER ACT | CLIMATE CHANGE| DICK CHENEY | DRINKING WATER | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | GEORGE W. BUSH | JENNIFERHALL-MASSEY | LISA JACKSON | NEW JERSEY | NEW YORK CITY | NEW YORK TIMES | OBAMA ADMINISTRATION| PUBLIC UTILITY | STEVE COHENS BLOG | TERRORISM | TOXINS | WATER POLLUTION RULES

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Self Interest as the Driver of National Climate and Energy PolicyBy Steve CohenSeptember 21, 2009 | 3:56 p.m

This weekend found President

Obama hitting every Sunday

TV talk show to talk up health

care policy. For some

environmental advocates, this

focus deepened their concern

that the United States would

lose this moment and punt on

climate policy. However, take

heart, this week the U.N.’s

climate summit begins in New

York and the President will be speaking there as well. While nothing in our

nation’s capital is ever certain, count me among those who expect to see both

health care and climate policy laws land on the President’s desk by December or

mid-winter at the latest.

The normal ebb and flow of American politics requires this dance which includes

one step back for every two steps forward. On climate, there are powerful forces

arguing that we should not reduce greenhouse gas emissions unless China and

India are also required to reduce emissions. This argument that the developing

world must be treated the same way we are is simply an excuse for inaction by

those who are not yet convinced that we have a climate crisis. The developing

world will also need to make the transition to renewable energy, but should be

expected to follow rather than lead developed nations in this transition.

There are also Europeans who think that the climate regime we establish must

include mandatory targets enforceable by the United Nations. I understand the

European perspective, and after a century of world wars it easy to see why Europe

decided to form a real union and dial back their national sovereignty. However, the

rest of the world is still a collection of sovereign nations and I promise you that is

not going to end any time soon.

The United States, by virtue of its military dominance, and the government of

China, by virtue of its increasing economic and military might, are not about to

cede authority to the United Nations- or anyone else. This means that climate

policy must be based on the self interest of these still very sovereign states. Our





More Columns >> goal should be to imitate the imperfect international regime that seeks to control

nuclear weapons. That regime is firmly based on national self interest. No nation

is going to unilaterally disarm just as no nation is going to unilaterally dismantle

their economy to stop emitting greenhouse gasses. As imperfect as the nuclear

regime is, for the sixty plus years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no nation state

has ever deployed a nuclear weapon. No sane national leader would consider

using these weapons. What does the control of nuclear weapons have to do with

climate policy? It’s all about the definition of national self interest.

Reduction of greenhouse gasses may or may not be in the long-term interest of the

U.S., China, or Europe, but the transition to a fossil fuel free economy is in

everyone’s self interest. There is a broad consensus that preventing global warming

and maintaining the viability of our planet’s ability to sustain life are important

goals. Although it is hard to argue against these goals, most nation states still

manage to act as if the planet doesn’t matter. The key is to turn enlightened

long-term self interest into short-term national interest and real-world public

policy. While there is no danger of running out of fossil fuels in the short-term, in

the long-term these finite resources will be depleted. Laws like the

Waxman-Markey climate bill, which cap allowable emissions of greenhouse gasses,

will gradually raise the price of fossil fuels and encourage energy efficiency and the

development of renewable energy. A gradual, well managed transition to a green

economy is in our national interest as well as in the world’s interest.

Why is a green economy in our national interest? The national interest here is in

not being left behind. The real goal, of critical importance to economic well being,

is to ensure that we don’t fall behind other nations in the race to devote as little of

our wealth as possible to energy. Waxman-Markey contributes to that goal. If other

nations find a way to run their economies with lower cost energy, the United

States will be less able to compete in the global economy. Our goods and services

will tend to cost more than those made in other nations. Public policy that pushes

low cost renewable energy is in our national interest.

Opponents of the transition to a non-fossil fuel economy will do the same thing

this time they did when the U.S. Senate rejected the Kyoto accords. They will argue

that a cap on emissions is the functional equivalent of unilateral disarmament.

That is why the comprehensive approach of Waxman Markey represents a

breakthrough and a more effective policy direction. This time we have embedded

climate regulation in energy policy. Climate policy is not simply about preserving

the planet; it is about preserving the competitiveness of our economy in the global

marketplace.

This does not tell you why I am confident that a climate bill and a health bill will

emerge from this Congress. While Congress can sometimes act irrationally, it

focuses first and foremost on its own survival. In this case I am counting on the

self interest of the Democrats in control of Congress. In 2010, one third of the

Senate and all of the House of Representatives must face the electorate. Mid-term

elections typically result in reduced margins for the President’s party. The

Democratic Party’s goal is to stay in charge as the new Congress forms in 2011. To

win, the Democrats need a successful President. They need to prevent their

opponents from defining the terms of these debates, as conservatives did through

the summer. For the Democrats to maintain control of the Congress they need to

face the electorate with three accomplishments: 1. A growing economy; 2. The start

of national health policy, and; 3. A climate and energy bill.


Niccolo Machiavelli once said that “it is much more secure to be feared than to be

loved.” Similarly, self interest is a more reliable predictor of politics and policy

than idealism is. By moderating the impact of boom and bust capitalism,

government policy in the 20th century preserved entrepreneurship and the market

economy into the 21st century. By pushing our economy toward a more efficient

green energy economy, we will preserve our prosperity through the 21st century.

We will do this because survival and prosperity are in our self interest.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CHINA | CLIMATE REGULATION | EUROPE | FOSSIL FUEL ECONOMY | GREENHOUSEGAS EMISSIONS | HEALTH CARE | HIROSHIMA | INDIA | KYOTO ACCORDS | MANDATORY TARGETS | NAGASAKI |NATIONAL SELF INTEREST | NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI | NUCLEAR REGIME | STEVE COHENS BLOG | U.N. CLIMATESUMMIT | WAXMAN-MARKEY CLIMATE BILL


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Cool Roofs for the City and the CountryBy Steve CohenSeptember 28, 2009 | 4:29 p.m

A few days ago, New York City

announced its “Cool Roofs”

initiative, an effort to save

energy by combining

volunteerism and green

design. According to the

Mayor’s press release:

"Mayor Michael R.

Bloomberg and former

Vice President and

founder of the Alliance

for Climate Protection Al

Gore today launched an

NYC Service initiative,

“NYC Cool Roofs,” to mobilize volunteers to coat the rooftops of

participating buildings with reflective, white coating to reduce cooling

costs, energy usage and greenhouse emissions… A cool roof absorbs 80

percent less heat than traditional dark colored roofs and can lower roof

temperatures by up to 60 degrees and indoor temperatures by 10 to 20

degrees on hot days. The decrease in temperature reduces the need for

air conditioning, lowering electric bills and reducing energy

consumption. Coating all eligible dark rooftops in New York City could

result in up to a 1 degree reduction of New York City’s ambient air

temperature – a significant and lasting change towards cooling the

City."

While the city’s building code requires that new buildings include these types of

roofs, the city has thousands of old structures that are not subject to these rules but

could still be painted and help save energy. This is the low-hanging fruit of energy

efficiency. The Mayor and his team should also be congratulated for integrating

this program into the national effort to encourage greater volunteerism and public

service.

However, in addition to the modest effort announced here, given the level of

unemployment in the city and around the country, I wonder why we don’t take

some of those billions of stimulus dollars still unspent and put a bunch of people to


+Enlarge Flickr via basykes



More Columns >> work painting roofs throughout America. We could start with public buildings,

including the nation’s schools. Most people know how to paint or can be quickly

trained, and it seems to me to be the kind of “shovel-ready” project that could do a

lot of good in a hurry.

While a national program might make sense, what about our own government?

The city government itself has a lot of buildings, and buried deep in the press

release announcing the cool roofs program is the following puzzling declaration

that seems to be the work of the City’s Department of Citywide Administrative

Services:

“The Department of Citywide Administrative Services has identified 1 million

square feet of roof space on City-owned buildings that could benefit from

reflective, white coating, including homeless shelters, police precincts, fire stations,

sanitation and transportation garages and office buildings. Once the results of the

pilot program are reviewed, the City will move forward with coating applicable

City-owned buildings with reflective, white coating.”

For the life of me, I can’t understand why this agency would think of roof painting

as a pilot project. While I can see why a volunteer-based program to paint 100,000

square feet might be seen as an experiment, the energy reduction benefits of these

roof surfaces is well established. More to the point, the city can’t be asking private

owners to resurface their roofs if they are unwilling to quickly renovate the roofs

on their own buildings.

As Mayor Bloomberg heads into his November reelection bid, I think his efforts on

sustainability, climate change, indoor air quality and overall public health are

among the strongest parts of his very strong record. Still, the press statement on

the Cool Roofs program provides an indication of the difficulty of bringing lasting

change to city government. While the Mayor’s office is creatively forging

partnerships with Al Gore and with the voluntary sector, the City’s own

Department of Citywide Administrative Services is taking a “wait and see”

approach toward cool roofs.

New York City’s government faces many difficult, complex problems: Issues such

as crime, terrorism, homelessness, education and emergency response come to

mind. Painting roofs has got to be one of the easy ones. That is also why a program

like this should go national. It is a simple, low-tech action that could put people to

work and save energy as soon as the weather gets warm.

MORE: AL GORE | AMBIENT AIR | BUILDING CODES | CITY DEPARTMENT OF CITYWIDE ADMINISTRATION |ENERGY CONSUMPTION | GREEN DESIGN | GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS | MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | NYC COOLROOFS | PILOT PROJECT | SHOVEL-READY | STEVE COHENS BLOG | UNEMPLOYMENT | VOLUNTEERISM

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Climate Regulation Has Begun in the U.S.By Steve CohenOctober 2, 2009 | 11:00 a.m.

In the last several days, some

of the attention in our nation’s

capital has shifted back to the

issue of climate change. Most

concretely, EPA has finally

taken the essential step of

regulating Carbon Dioxide as a

pollutant under the Clean Air

Act. Meanwhile, over in the

U.S. Senate, Senators Kerry

and Boxer have introduced a

bill that focuses on energy and climate, the upper house’s counterpart to the

Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill that passed in the House of

Representatives earlier this year. Both are crucial developments, but EPA’s

decision is more important in the short run since it means that the U.S. finally has

a functioning form of climate law.

According to EPA’s website, the new rule was announced by EPA Chief Lisa

Jackson on September 30:

“The Administrator announced a proposal requiring large industrial facilities that

emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs [greenhouse gases] a year to obtain construction

and operating permits covering these emissions. These permits must demonstrate

the use of best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures to

minimize GHG emissions when facilities are constructed or significantly

modified.”

Jackson remarked that: “By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we

can begin reducing emissions from the nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitting

facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast

majority of our economy.” EPA’s proposed climate regulation applies to the

approximately 14,000 large businesses that emit about 70% of the nation’s

greenhouse gases.

In Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of

Manufacturers have already voiced their opposition to the proposed rule. That is

far from surprising, but, paradoxically, an interesting impact of this rule might be





More Columns >> an increase in industry support for legislation like Waxman-Markey because it

provides more flexibility in meeting emission caps. Waxman-Markey’s cap and

trade provision allows companies to trade pollution allowances. The new approach

to climate in Waxman-Markey also attacks the root causes of global warming by

promoting the development of new energy technology and encouraging greater

energy efficiency. It includes programs for climate adaptation, carbon

sequestration and the transition to a green energy economy. EPA’s new rule, on the

other hand, is good, old-fashioned command and control. The business community

might prefer a bill with both carrots and sticks, if the alternative is the current law,

which only provides sticks.

In comparison to Waxman-Markey, the Clean Air Act is a non-comprehensive,

one-dimensional approach to climate policy. EPA’s proposed rule is a hacksaw,

when the Obama Administration would rather operate with a scalpel.

Nevertheless, if Congress is unable to provide an elegant tool to begin the process

of reducing greenhouse gases, then the EPA will simply have to use the best tool

they can grab hold of. Though outdated, the Clean Air Act is far better than

nothing. This approach to environmental regulation finds its historical roots in the

early days of EPA. Seven days after EPA was created in 1970, its first

administrator, William Ruckelshaus, used provisions from the River and

Harbors Act of 1899 to force a number of large cities (run by mayors that were

not of the President’s political party) to stop dumping sewage into local waterways.

EPA’s strong action is possible because of President Obama’s deep understanding

of the climate problem and his willingness to use the authorities he has available.

In the 1970’s many industry groups eventually realized that the public demand for

clean water and clean air would result in new and more stringent laws. Rather than

opposing all efforts at change, some decided to try to shape the change they saw

coming. Today, anyone running a business with even a small amount of foresight

realizes that climate and energy policies are going to be changed over the next

several years. Better-managed businesses will be trying to figure out how to plan

for change rather than continue to resist it.

Unfortunately, despite the President’s desire to usher in a post-partisan period, the

lines only seem to be getting more sharply drawn. Let’s keep in mind that the

lobbying business has grown dramatically in recent years, along with limitless

electronic communication. Intense partisanship has become a big business. And

there is simply more money to be made if you are part of the entrenched, hard line

opposition than if you are a moderate, pragmatic deal maker.

EPA’s tougher approach to climate regulation will enable our negotiators at the

Copenhagen Climate Conference in mid-December to claim that the U.S. has put in

place a new policy to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases. While a new piece of

legislation would be better than what we have now, using the Clean Air Act is

better than doing nothing. Here comes the hacksaw.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | BARBARA BOXER | CAPS GREENHOUSE GAS | CARBON SEQUESTRATION | CLEANAIR ACT | CLIMATE CHANGE | COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CONFERENCE | EMISSIONS | EPA | EPA CHIEF LISAJACKSON | JOHN KERRY | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS | RIVER AND HARBORS ACT | STEVECOHENS BLOG | U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE | WAXMAN-MARKEY CLIMATE BILL | WILLIAM RUCKELSHAUS

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The Daily Show, Cap and Trade, and Scientific LiteracyBy Steve CohenOctober 6, 2009 | 11:18 a.m.

Watching Jon Stewart use

Capn’ Crunch as the logo for

climate cap and trade

regulation the other night

started me thinking about the

need for our society to get

more sophisticated about its

understanding of economics,

policy, and science. My

reaction to the pitiful state of

our public policy dialogue is

what you might expect from someone who teaches public administration at a

university. While Stewart claims to just be a comedian, he is very influential and

usually is both smart and correct. He just missed the point this time; I guess he

couldn’t resist the Capn’ Crunch gag.

It’s true that, under cap and trade, companies receive permits to pollute. But it’s

also true that the permits gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses they

are allowed to emit. For the record, it’s not just rich companies that get to buy

permits to pollute, but clean companies that get to sell them. The idea is to get as

much pollution reduction as possible at the least possible cost. There are two basic

alternatives to cap and trade: 1. a simple cap—what is often called command and

control regulation; or 2. a tax on carbon. By setting a cap or tax on pollution, you

are still allowing it to take place—and so it is still “permission to legally pollute.”

An out and out prohibition on carbon dioxide emissions is infeasible, since it

would end economic life as we know it. Jon Stewart’s Daily Show would be taken

off the air, since there would be no electricity to run our televisions. That would be

a shame, since it’s my favorite TV show.

The problem of global warming is a complicated one, and it is only the most visible

of the impacts of our growing technological capacity. Our economic and political

lives are becoming more complicated and more difficult to manage. We benefit

from these technological marvels, but we are more vulnerable as a result of them.

The growing complexity of economic life and financial transactions has been

further complicated by the increased technical and scientific content of the goods





More Columns >> and services provided by our post-industrial society. For example, the free market

marvel of Henry Ford’s Model T has been replaced by today’s highly regulated

automobile—a vehicle that includes pollution control technology, required safety

equipment, and a range of computer controls and other technologies. Similarly,

American farming has come a long way from “40 acres and a mule” to become a

highly mechanized, computer-controlled agribusiness.

Public policy requires an understanding of science and technology to be effective.

Farming practices influence food safety, public health, and water supplies, and

even generate ethical issues that stem from cloning and genetic engineering. Our

public officials cannot regulate those activities in the public interest if they do not

understand the science and technology upon which they are based. How can one

create policy on “how clean is clean” at a toxic waste site—how far clean-up must

proceed before it is complete—without some understanding of the transport,

toxicity, and latency of the individual and interacting chemicals?

The names Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison are well

known and are of a time when technology and the economy was simple enough for

inventors to become “heroes” and even players in the national economy. Today’s

version of these innovators, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, may not be “inventors,”

but are technically sophisticated managers who depend on huge R & D machines to

develop new products. They continue the 20th century practice that tied economic

growth to technological innovation.

New products, made with new and more efficient production techniques, are

constantly introduced and upgraded: autos, electricity and illumination,

refrigeration, air conditioning, radio, telephones, black and white TV, color TV,

digital TV, main frame computers, laptop computes, satellite communication, air

travel, cell phones, Blackberries, the Internet, and computer software. Modern

economic life is dominated by the development and introduction of new

technologies.

Just as economic life is dominated by science and technology, public policy issues

are increasingly shaped by scientific and technological developments as well.

Understanding public policy requires increased levels of scientific literacy. For

example (not an exhaustive list):

• National security: Arms, aircraft, submarines, ships, missiles, atomic weapons,

and spy satellites are all subject to constant technological change and

advancement. Modern warfare is dominated by the importance of new technology

and the ability or inability to develop counter-measures to these new technologies.

• Health care. From immunizations to MRIs, health care and the associated

calculation of costs and benefits are constantly changing due to the development of

new drugs and technologies. Moreover, the effect of the use of non-medical

technologies on human health requires both an understanding of those

technologies and of their impact on human biology and chemistry. People are

living longer and healthier lives as a result of medical technologies. These

technologies are reshaping our economies, societies, and politics in profound ways

that we are only beginning to understand.

• Environmental Protection and Sustainability. The entire range of human

activity influences a web of biological relationships in our ecosystems that

eventually lead back to humans and their health. We are learning more every day

about the science of our planet, how it is changing due to human impacts and what

we need to do to minimize our negative impact or “footprint.” We need to learn


more about how to provide food, water, energy, and other resources based on the

principles of reuse and sustainability.

Scientific and technical literacy is essential for understanding and governing the

modern world. To maximize the benefits and reduce the costs of using new

technologies, decision-makers must develop a more sophisticated understanding

of the science of the new technologies they are selling or trying to regulate. For

example, in the 1950s and 1960s, engineers knew that the toxic waste they were

dumping the ground could kill people and ruin the environment, but the business

leaders they worked for were largely ignorant of those scientific facts. Most of the

elected leaders responsible for the communities “hosting” these dumpsites did not

even know they existed or, if they did, that they were dangerous. At the infamous

Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, the Hooker Chemical Company sold the

land they dumped chemicals on to the local government for a dollar. The

community then built a school on top of the site, with a playground directly over

the dump. Eventually, the chemicals leached off the site, causing great harm to the

local community. It is difficult to know how much it will cost us to clean up this

nation’s toxic waste, but the job is far from over and the bill is probably over $100

billion. Ignorance was far from bliss. In the 21st century we need to do a better job

of teaching our leaders to understand science and technology.

In addition to understanding science, last year’s Wall Street meltdown should also

convince us that we need our leaders to develop a deeper understanding of finance

as well. The media can play a role in increasing our scientific and economic

literacy, or they can focus on death squads, the President’s birth certificate or cute

word plays on “cap’n trade.” A cheap laugh is always better than a vicious lie, so I’ll

keep tuning into The Daily Show—since even on the rare occasions that he is

wrong, Jon Stewart always does his job and makes us laugh.

MORE: AGRIBUSINESS | ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL | BARACK OBAMA | BILL GATES | CAPN' CRUNCH |CARBON TAX | CLIMATE CAP | DAILY SHOW | ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABILITY |FOOTPRINT | GREENHOUSE GASES | HEALTH CARE | HENRY FORD | HOOKER CHEMICAL COMPANY | JONSTEWART | LOVE CANAL | MODEL T | NATIONAL SECURITY | R&D | STEVE COHENS BLOG | STEVE JOBS |THOMAS EDISON | TRADE REGULATION


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The Persistence of HopeBy Steve CohenOctober 9, 2009 | 12:42 p.m

Barack Obama’s Presidency is

less than a year old, and he

has already found himself on

the roller coaster ride of

American politics, media and

celebrity. It must have been a

pleasant surprise to wake to

the news on October 9th that

he had been awarded the

Nobel Peace Prize. While it

will be derided by extremists

of both the Right and the Left (probably more by the Right), it is a significant and

telling moment for the President and for the United States of America.

For the extreme Left, he’s the President who is still fighting a war in Iraq, an

escalating war in Afghanistan, and possibly thinking about taking out Iran’s

nuclear capability. For the extreme Right, he’s a foreign born egomaniac who is

getting ready to allow gays to serve in the military and planning to cut and run

from all American military engagements. However, it is instructive to read the

President’s Nobel Prize citation and see how Obama is being perceived

abroad:

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics.

Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role

that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and

negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult

international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully

stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s

initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the

great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights

are to be strengthened.”

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s

attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in

the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values

and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population,”





More Columns >> My favorite part of the news stories about the Prize is the way the President was

informed of this award. Due to time zone differences, American Nobelists are

typically informed of their win in the middle of the night. Not this time. According

to Nobel Committee Chair Thorbjoern Jagland , the Committee decided not to

inform Obama early because it didn't want to wake him up. "Waking up a

president in the middle of the night, this isn't really something you do," Yes, he

might think the nation was being attacked.. Deploying the air force would not be

the correct response to winning a peace prize.

Of course, Obama is not the first sitting American President to win the Prize.

Teddy Roosevelt won in 1916 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The move by the Nobel

committee serves to reinforce the central position of American diplomacy and the

continued importance of the American Presidency. With Europe, China, India, and

Russia emerging as world powers, the United States continues to retain its critical

position, with the world’s most powerful military and a huge if struggling economy.

Of equal importance is America’s central position in the world’s media, on the web

and in the popular imagination. Images of America are communicated throughout

the world and continue to dominate the world’s collective bandwith.

It matters what the American President does, how he does it and what he says.

When President George W. Bush swaggers on to an aircraft carrier to declare

“mission accomplished” it says one thing. When President Barack Obama goes to

Cairo to hold out an olive branch to the Muslim world, it says something quite

different. While being popular outside the United States may not be the main

objective of the American President, Machiavelli aside, being feared and loathed is

not always the best way to promote American interests in an interdependent global

system.

A number of polls this summer show that the United States is more respected

abroad than it was during the Bush Administration and it is clear that the Obama

team sees diplomacy as well as the military as tools for advancing American

interests. Obama is a masterful communicator and a compelling figure on the

world stage. While it is too early to know if all of this promise will translate into

performance, the Nobel Committee seems to be betting on our still new President.

I admit that I am too. Obama has written his own story and termed it the Audacity

of Hope. I think the Nobel committee has added its voice to that story- making the

case for the persistence of hope. I think it is a wonderful gesture, worthy of the

traditions of this important prize.

MORE: AFGHANISTAN | BARACK OBAMA | BUSH ADMINISTRATION | DIPLOMACY | GEORGE W. BUSH | IRAQ |MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY | NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI | NOBEL PEACE PRIZE | STEVE COHENS BLOG |THEODORE ROOSEVELT | THORBJOERN JAGLAND | UNITED NATIONS | US | WOODROW WILSON

NobelismSubmitted by Ruckweiler on Fri, 10/09/2009 - 16:01.So now we award the prize for intentions? Silly me, I thought the Peace Prize was foractually doing something to cause peace to occur. The Kenyan is a cipher and theNarcissist-in Chief. His true biography will be very short.



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The Slow and Steady Stimulus Package is Moving Down the Track, Or: It's a Local, Notan ExpressBy Steve CohenOctober 19, 2009 | 3:31 p.m

At the start of my professional

career, I worked for the United

States Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) and,

like many, I found the federal

government to be a source of

both inspiration and

frustration. It was frustrating

because getting it in motion

was like turning around a

huge cruise ship (no, not the

Titanic!). It was inspiring because when it did get moving it represented this entire

great nation and could do amazing things. The symbols of our country-The White

House, the Capitol Dome, the monuments to Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR

and our veterans-still move me. This nation transformed the world and remains

this planet's best and brightest hope for the future. While that big, cumbersome

federal government always moves slowly, it is finally in motion, and building

momentum in a way we have not seen in decades. The source of that motion? The

much-maligned American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, signed

into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009. You know it better as the

stimulus package.

If you spend nearly 800 billion dollars to get the economy moving again, you can

be sure of three things: 1. some of the money will be wasted and/or stolen, 2. some

of the money will do some good, and 3. some federal agencies will get the money

out the door faster than others. One of the agencies given a large amount of new

funding under the stimulus program was the Department of Energy, which

received $36.7 billion dollars of the $43 billion allocated by the bill to energy

projects. Since the transition to a green energy economy is critical to recovery, one

would think that it would be important to spend these funds as quickly as possible.

Recall that the stimulus package included a number of provisions that

simultaneously increased spending and reduced taxes. The $787 billion package

spent nearly $500 billion for programs and allocated about $288 billion to tax


+Enlarge Flickr via Cliff1066



More Columns >> relief. The NY Times website includes a detailed outline of the program's

allocations.

The spending or non-tax portion of the bill breaks down into seven broad

categories:

1. State and local fiscal relief: $144 billion

2. Infrastructure and Science: $111 billion

3. Welfare Programs: $81 billion

4. Health Care: $59 billion

5. Education: $53 billion

6. Energy: $43 billion

7. Other: $8 billion

Some of the science funding is beginning to make its way to universities like the

one I work at, providing funds for student scholarships, research jobs, facilities

and equipment. While the impact of these funds will certainly be felt in waves, the

first of these waves has hit the shore. It takes a while to make good use of these

extra funds, and once we receive them from Washington, we cannot instantly build

a lab or hire a researcher. Still, new grants are arriving on campuses across

America, and scientists are moving quickly to take advantage of this rare

opportunity to obtain extra funding for their labs. Moreover, in addition to these

immediate short-term impacts, the longer-term economic benefits from scientific

discoveries and newly trained researchers will ensure that the effects of these

funds will be felt for many years to come.

In the Energy Department, the pace of spending stimulus funds has been

excruciatingly slow. Fortunately, in recent weeks we have begun to see some signs

that this particularly lumbering federal giant is finally beginning to get its act

together. In early October, the Department announced a $750 million program

funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to "help accelerate the

development of conventional renewable energy generation projects." According to

the DOE website, these funds would "cover the cost of loan guarantees which

could support as much as $4 to 8 billion in lending to eligible projects." The goal is

to use federal loan guarantees to entice private capital into the energy marketplace.

The Department of Energy has also announced a number of grant programs for

universities researching energy issues.

The Department of Energy's share of the stimulus bill totals nearly $37 billion

dollars. According to the department's "Recovery and Reinvestment"

website, the funds have been earmarked for various projects and allocated in the

following manner:

1. $16.8 billion invested in improving energy efficiency and developing sources

of renewable energy

2. $6 billion for decontamination and clean up of Cold War nuclear sites

3. $4.5 billion for development and implementation of Smart Grid programs

and efficient electrical transmission

4. $4 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects


5. $3.4 billion for research on carbon capture and storage and other ways to

control carbon emissions

6. $1.6 billion in funding for research and academic programs like those

discussed above at schools and universities across the country

7. $400 million to the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy for other

research and technology development projects

Recovery.gov, the federal government's website for tracking stimulus spending,

shows that the Department of Energy has received about $18 billion (actually

$18,255,356,221) of the $36.7 billion listed above, but as of October 9, 2009, had

only spent about one billion (or $1,023,085,017). The Department of Energy is

spending its stimulus money at a much slower rate than the rest of the federal

government. While the team at Energy has only spent about 3% of the $36.7 billion

they were allocated, overall federal spending has reached about 22%, or $173

billion of the full stimulus package of $787 billion.

While I am tempted to observe that an inability to spend money may very well be a

comment on the overall competence of the Department of Energy, I will instead try

to believe that just like the tortoise and the hare, DOE's leadership believes that

"slow and steady wins the race."

This brief run through the stimulus spending data tells us two things. First, most of

the impact of the stimulus will be in the future; over three quarters of the money

promised is still in the bank. Second, we should not be surprised at the lack of

impact of the stimulus on development of a green energy economy. Economists are

telling us that the recession is over, yet unemployment is still rising. Perhaps the

economy needs an extra shot of stimulus to caffeinate the job market. The good

news is that when you look at the spending data, that extra burst of economic

espresso is still being brewed.

MORE: AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009 | DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY | ENERGYEFFICIENCY | FEDERAL STIMULUS PACKAGE | GOVERNMENT | RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY |RESEARCH | STEVE COHENS BLOG


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Cash and Carry Political CampaignsBy Steve CohenOctober 26, 2009 | 1:52 p.m

Saturday's New York Times

and much of our local media

have been calling attention to

the amazing amount of money

that Mike Bloomberg is

spending on his reelection

campaign. In the end, he will

spend between $100 million

and $150 million on his

personal stimulus program for

New York's political

consultant and media industry. He will outspend his opponent, NYC Comptroller

Bill Thompson, by more than 15 to 1. New York's good government groups lament

the impact of money on politics and are providing predictable quotes for

familiar-looking news stories. The Thompson campaign is trying to combine

Bloomberg's spending with the term limits repeal to portray the mayor as a

power-hungry, out of touch Upper East Side billionaire. We are reminded, once

again, that the Mayor is very wealthy. But New Yorkers already know that, and in

my view Thompson's attack misses the point. The fundamental issue is the role of

money in our political process. Bloomberg's spending is a symptom of that

problem, but it is not the cause.

The problem is that American democracy has never been overly democratic.

Vermont's 600,000 or so people elect the same number of Senators as New York's

19,000,000. However, these days the problem with our system of representation

is less one of geographic bias than of the power of economic interests. Economic

power is projected by direct lobbying in today's complex legislative process and by

corporate campaign contributions to elected officials. President Obama recently

blasted the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers

for opposing the climate and energy bills before Congress. Why should the

President care about the views of those business groups? He was elected by a large

majority and his party controls both Houses of Congress. He cares because he

knows that his election was made possible by two anomalies unique to the 2008

election. The first was the Wall Street crash that appeared to be out of control in

the weeks before the election. American business was in a state of panic and the

McCain ticket, especially with Palin on it, seemed riskier than Obama and Biden.





More Columns >> The second was Obama's remarkable success in raising money from small online

contributions. Obama was able to out-fundraise the Republicans and negate the

usual advantage of wealth and economic power in American politics.

It is of course silly to believe that people with economic power would not use that

power to advance their own interests in the political system. Every regulation ever

created to control the role of money in politics is closely followed by an army of

lawyers looking for loopholes. Economic power is like a stream flowing down a

mountain; gravity alone can bring it to where it wants to go. If you make it difficult

for this power to be expressed legitimately, some power brokers will still manage to

achieve their goals illegally.

But not Mike Bloomberg. The problem with the current state of campaign finance

law is that decent, civic-minded people like our Mayor are not only allowed to

spend as much of their own money as they can, but the system actually encourages

it. If you are a prudent, competent public servant, convinced that your election is in

the public interest, failing to spend your own money on your own cause seems

idiotic. With $16 billion in the bank, one could spend $200 million and barely

notice that it's gone. However, if it was illegal to spend your own money on a

campaign, I know that Mike Bloomberg would not spend his.

As scary as Bloomberg's spending might be for democracy, the fundraising

conflicts of interest by the non-billionaires running for office in NYC is even worse.

Comptroller Thompson takes money from people in the investment and finance

industry even though he runs the city's pension system, and City Councilman de

Blasio takes campaign money from the same nonprofits he helped to secure city

funding. These two guys are among the most honest, incorruptible elected officials

you will ever find, but to compete in this electoral system, candidates have

to become part-time public servants and full-time fundraisers.

The root of all this evil is in a well-known 1976 Supreme Court case called Buckley

vs. Valeo. In that case:

"...the Court found that the expenditure ceiling in the FECA (Federal Election

Campaign Act) imposed "direct and substantial restraints on the quantity of

political speech" and invalidated three expenditure limitations as violations of the

First Amendment."

In a ruling that makes democracy a cash-and-carry operation, the Court decided

that campaign contributions were a form of free speech. There are probably good

libertarian and even free speech arguments for allowing people to spend their own

money to promote their own views. But the impact of this ruling, coupled with the

escalating costs of modern political campaigning, has been to elevate the

importance of money in politics to an absurd level.

The spectacle of a wealthy man spending his own money in a legal effort to stay in

office makes for a good, entertaining news story. But all the whining changes

nothing. The fundamental problem is that as long as we equate campaign spending

with free speech, it will not be possible to control the impact of money in our

political process. Bloomberg's money is not the real problem. His contributions

are upfront and visible for all to see. The real problem is the quiet, constant cash

campaign contributions of businesses ranging from the health care industry to oil

companies. These companies are working overtime, but out of the media spotlight,

to influence public policy. The President will only get health and climate bills

enacted this year if he is able to overcome these powerful economic forces. That's

http://www.observer.com/2009/baseball-and-heart-new-york-city


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Baseball and the Heart of New York CityBy Steve CohenNovember 2, 2009 | 4:43 p.m

My parents moved to

Brooklyn in 1955 when I was

almost two years old, and by

the time I was four, the

Brooklyn Dodgers and New

York Giants had played their

last home games in the five

boroughs. Until Casey Stengel

and the Mets arrived in 1962,

the only baseball team in town

was the New York Yankees. It

was during that time, while the Yankees held a monopoly on New York baseball,

that I developed my lifelong love for baseball. And that is why, despite growing up

in Brooklyn, I am a semi-fanatical Yankee fan.

I grew up thinking that the natural order of things dictated that the Yankees

belonged in the World Series. But Derek Jeter and I have both learned the hard

way that other teams get to play and win in the Series too. Still, watching the

Yankees in this year’s World Series feels to me like the planet has been restored to

its proper orbit. What is there about baseball and New York that puts them in

sync? I suppose some of it is that baseball is a 19th century sport, with plenty of

time for contemplation and beer between plays. In the rest of the country, if people

want to see smashing, crashing and fast-moving action, they check out football

games or NASCAR. In New York, we just walk down Broadway.

For many, but especially for New Yorkers, the search for calm and a sense of

connection to the past leads to baseball. That’s why some of us were so moved

when Derek Jeter broke Lou Gehrig’s Yankee base hit record this summer. It was

wonderful to see that someone whom we admire so much can somehow be

connected to the guy who made the famous “luckiest man in the world” speech,

way back when the world was filmed in black and white. The importance of

baseball has never been better expressed than by the “Terrance Mann” character in

the great baseball movie Field of Dreams:

“The one constant through all the years… has been baseball. America has rolled by

like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and

erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of





More Columns >> our past… It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again….”

Baseball appears again and again in our culture as a unifying symbol and set of

images. Baseball is Jackie Robinson and the fight against Jim Crow. Baseball is the

growth of the global economy and players from Latin America and Asia sharing a

field of dreams with guys from Kansas. And baseball is the Yankees and New York

City—from the “Bronx is burning” Reggie Jackson images of 1977 to the post-9-11

World Series against Arizona that was emblematic of the tenacity and toughness of

New York.

This year, the cultural touchstone for the World Series may very well end up being

the rap star Jay-Z. I admit that most rap songs don’t move me, but ever since I

heard Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sing “Empire State of Mind” a few weeks ago.

I have not been able to get those lyrics or melodies out of my head. As with all

great art, the song has captured the sound and feel of this place perfectly. Jay-Z

has created an indelible image of New York City in 2009. Watching his

performance at Yankee Stadium before the second game of the World Series

the other night, with the Yankees looking on, was simply amazing.

New York City has a reputation for being a cold and unforgiving place, but those of

us who have been here a long time know that is simply not true. This place gives

and receives great loyalty and heart, and one sign of that spirit is the number of

Yankee caps and A-Rod t-shirts you see all over town these days. Jay-Z may be able

to “make the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can,” but all he’s really

pointing out is that the cap and the team are just a part of this place. The “streets

that can make you feel brand new” are bigger than the Yankees and bigger than rap

music. They are what David Dinkins once called a “gorgeous mosaic.” Each

community in the city is distinct and identifiable, but when you step back and look

at the whole, it provides an image of great beauty. This is a unique place where the

entire world gathers to meet, learn, have fun, make a living and, of course, watch

the game.

MORE: 9-11 | ALICIA KEYS | BROOKLYN DODGERS | CASEY STENGEL | DAVID DINKINS | DEREK JETER | EMPIRESTATE OF MIND | FIELD OF DREAMS. JIM CROW | JACKIE ROBINSON | JAY-Z | LOU GEHRIG | NASCAR | NEWYORK GIANTS | NEW YORK METS | NEW YORK YANKEES | REGGIE JACKSON | STEVE COHENS BLOG |TERRANCE MANN | THE WORLD SERIES | YANKEE STADIUM

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Zoning the Sustainable CityBy Steve CohenNovember 12, 2009 | 2:25 p.m

About a week before Election

Day, with little fanfare, the

Bloomberg Administration

announced its one hundredth

zoning change since the mayor

came into office in 2002. In

New York City, zoning is one

of the most important

regulatory tools available to

government in its efforts to

enhance sustainability and the

quality of life available for the

city's residents, workers and tourists. The Bloomberg Administration, under the

leadership of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, has had a stunning

degree of success in putting into place an intelligent and far-sighted plan to govern

the future development of the city

In the past fifty years, New York City has been a city transformed. Where this was

once a manufacturing hub with a range of factories located throughout Manhattan

and parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, today it is a thriving post-industrial

city. The docks on the west side of Manhattan have been replaced by containerized

port facilities on the Jersey side of the river. In West Harlem, a vertical auto

factory that once manufactured Studebaker cars now houses the offices of

Columbia University's human resources, finance and information technology staff.

New York's land use plans have been adjusted to fit the city that we have become.

Since we no longer do much manufacturing here, what kind of work do we do in

New York City? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in September

2009 nearly 3,700,000 people in New York were employed. Only 200,000 of those

jobs were in manufacturing and construction. We have about 725,000 people

working in education and health care, about a half a million in trade,

transportation and utilities, and 580,000 jobs in professional and business

services. About 560,000 New Yorkers work in government, 430,000 have jobs in

the finance industry and 311,000 work in leisure and hospitality businesses. New

Yorkers think, teach, design and do things, but for the most part we no longer

make things. Although the Meatpacking District no longer packs much meat, you

can eat plenty of meat in the District's fancy restaurants. The High Line doesn't


+Enlarge via flickr



More Columns >> move freight anymore, but it does provide breathtaking views of the post-industrial

cityscape. The physical fabric of the city has adapted itself to a new economy, and

one of the Bloomberg Administration's lasting accomplishments will be its effort to

steer the city's development patterns with their new zoning rules.

What have these rules actually done? According the Mayor's press release:

"City Planning's 100 re-zonings have created a blueprint for sustainable

development. Together, they offer new housing and job opportunities near transit

hubs while maintaining the diverse character of New York City's many residential

neighborhoods by updating decades-old zoning to protect the scale of lower

density and auto-dependent neighborhoods... Approximately 2.1 million people

live in areas touched by re-zonings."

Developers sometimes complain about Commissioner Burden's "intrusive"

involvement in their development projects, and a fair amount of public attention

has been devoted to her decisions to reduce the size of some building projects. Still,

I think the most important impact of her work has been to increase population

density in areas convenient to mass transit and preserve low density

neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.

New York is a city of often startlingly diverse neighborhoods. Manhattanites may

be surprised to learn what outer-borough folks rarely forget: that most of the land

in New York City sits beneath single family homes. While most New Yorkers live in

apartments, parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx are as

auto-dependent and low density as much of Long Island, Westchester and New

Jersey. Burden's zoning decisions discourage increased population density in the

parts of New York City that are dominated by single family homes while

encouraging efforts to increase density in the city's many commercial hubs located

near subway stops.

In addition, the new zoning rules recognize the importance of greening our

neighborhoods to improve the city's attractiveness to new residents and

businesses. As Commissioner Burden notes on her agency's website :

"As a result of new zoning regulations, new developments must plant street trees to

green and beautify our city as Mayor Bloomberg envisioned in PlaNYC2030. This

initiative will result in as many as 10,000 street trees a year. Along with our green

zoning requirements for landscaping parking lots and planting front yards, it will

reduce storm water runoff, tame the urban heat island effect, and create a more

pedestrian-friendly environment."

Moreover, the Commission is now working on a zoning rule that would encourage

the development of neighborhood grocery stores in low income sections of the city.

There are parts of New York City where it is a lot easier to find a beer that "tastes

great and is less filling" than a piece of fresh fruit for your daughter's lunch bag.

When you look closely at the accomplishments of the City Planning Commission

under Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Burden, it is easier to explain the

Mayor's 70% approval rating than his meager electoral victory. Zoning reform of

the type we have had in New York City these past eight years typically has a

profound and long lasting impact on the physical contours of the city. There is little

doubt in my mind that the impact of this visionary zoning reform will be felt in

New York for decades to come. It will make the city a better place to live-especially

when the economy picks up and the million new New Yorkers predicted by the


City's PLANYC 2030 start to settle in. The large scale of New York City makes this

city the ultimate "big tent." This place has just about everything. Riverdale, Forest

Hills and Mill Basin may not look like Harlem, East New York and Times Square,

but they are all neighborhoods of New York City. Mike Bloomberg and Amanda

Burden deserve our praise for increasing the odds that these neighborhoods will be

preserved well into the 21st century.

MORE: BLOOMBERG ADMINISTRATION | BLUEPRINT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | BUREAU OF LABORSTATISTICS | CITY PLANNING COMMISSIONER AMANDA BURDEN | COMPARTMENTALIZED PORT FACILITIES |MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG | MEATPACKING DISTRICT | PLANYC2030 | POPULATION DENSITY |POST-INDUSTRIAL CITY | REGULATORY TOOLS | STEVE COHENS BLOG | STREET TREES | ZONING

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They Can Run But Cannot Hide from the Climate Conference in CopenhagenBy Steve CohenNovember 19, 2009 | 3:32 p.m

As the nations of the world

prepare to meet in Denmark

in December, there is some

well publicized noise being

emitted to lower expectations

for a climate treaty. The

United States and China-the

two largest emitters of

greenhouse gasses (over 40%

of the world's pollutant

load)-appear to be at the

center of this effort at political agenda setting. They are trying to lower

expectations so that any progress at all can be presented as a major victory. While

politics often denies and defies logic, I think that we are going to see some real

action in Copenhagen. The pressure and momentum from the public, the media

and other non-governmental players in Copenhagen in December will be

enormous. While it is true that it may be too late to develop and sign a global

climate treaty, it is way too late to do nothing. When the government folks arrive,

they will find themselves in the center of a media onslaught.

There are two motors behind the emerging climate policy. The first is the actual

danger posed by global warming. The second is the rising cost and uncertain

supply of fossil fuels. The transition to a renewable energy base is not a luxury

item; it is essential to our economic well being. The side effect of a renewable

energy base is a reduction of greenhouse gasses. Regulation of carbon dioxide will

stimulate and hasten the transition to a green energy economy. It will also promote

more efficient use of all forms of energy, even fossil fuels.

In his November 17th column in the New York Times, David Leonhardt

discussed "cash for caulkers", a proposed stimulus program to promote

weatherization in private homes. Leonhardt concluded that while

"... cash for caulkers would be trickier than cash for clunkers ... [it] would have the

potential to do far more good. McKinsey, the consulting firm, estimates that

households could reduce their energy use by 28 percent over the next decade. In

terms of greenhouse gases, that would be the equivalent of taking half of all





More Columns >> vehicles in this country off the road...Done right, cash for caulkers would be

precisely the kind of stimulus that makes the most sense: spending money now to

save money later."

It makes good economic sense to use less energy to get the same benefit. This is

true in appliances, homes, autos and every place else we use energy. However, the

argument is often made that fossil fuels are cheaper than renewables and so the

move away from fossil fuels will increase costs and reduce economic well being.

However, as I and many others have frequently observed, the era of cheap, easily

accessible and abundant fossil fuels will not last forever. The price spikes and

political battles over drilling are warning signals of the uncertain future of fossil

fuels. Eventually, capital will move away from uncertainty and the risks of fossil

fuels toward energy sources that are more susceptible to cost reduction through

application of new technology. While today renewables are far riskier than fossil

fuels, this is not a trend that will last forever.

In the globally interconnected economic competition we all work within, the future

will belong to those nations that learn to deliver energy with the least economic

and environmental cost. This competition requires companies to look to cut costs

on materials, labor, production processes, waste management, transportation and

energy. These trends will continue with or without a climate treaty.

But the climate treaty and a climate law in the U.S. will provide a strong signal to

the public and to business leaders that governments will push the move to a green

energy economy. In the case of the Obama Administration, the failure to produce

such change endangers the fragile political coalition that brought it to office. The

Copenhagen conference should be seen as a giant two-week long media event

pushing climate policy. It will be the climate change Olympics. President Obama

and his fellow world leaders will not be able to drive this issue off of the agenda no

matter how hard they try to reduce expectations.

Moreover, it is in President Obama's political interest to ride this media wave and

encourage it to build. The predictable aftermath of Copenhagen will be a rise in

understanding of the climate problem and support for change policy at the

national and international level. As the mid-term elections approach and the

Democrats continue to sink in the polls, they will need tangible results, or at a

minimum a well fought loss, to energize the first time voters that made the

difference in 2008. During his presidential candidacy, Obama made hope a

principle, and when questioned about the feasibility of fundamental political

change, responded "yes we can." Many of us continue to hope that we can and we

will.

I have argued that the Democrats need three successes to have any chance of

maintaining control of Congress in 2010: 1. Economic revival; 2.Health care

reform, and; 3. Climate change and energy policy. However, in addition to making

progress in all of those areas, they need to link the three together in a convincing

message that the change we were promised is well underway. If the main message

out of Copenhagen is that the United States temporized and retreated, the

Democrats will have deep problems motivating 2008's first time voters to the

polls. In that election Obama was the choice of 69% of first time voters. At a

minimum, the President needs to go to Copenhagen and clearly articulate his own

policies on climate change. In my view, going to Copenhagen is less risky for him

than staying away.

MORE: BARACK OBAMA | CASH FOR CAULKERS | CHINA | CLIMATE CHANGE OLYMPICS | CLIMATE LAW |CLIMATE TREATY | COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CONFERENCE | DAVID LEONHARDT | DENMARK | FOSSIL FUELS |


GREENHOUSE GASES | MCKINSEY | RENEWABLE ENERGY BASE | STEVE COHENS BLOG | U.S.

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Sewage Treatment and Investment in National InfrastructureBy Steve CohenNovember 24, 2009 | 3:11 p.m

An excellent article by

Charles Duhigg in the NY

Times on November 23,

2009, detailed the degree to

which cities around the United

States have violated water

pollution control standards by

dumping raw sewage into our

waterways. Unlike the

situation he described in a

similar piece a few months

ago, the violators are not

private companies dumping industrial waste, but our own governments.

The problem is what is sometimes called "combined sewer overflows." In cities like

New York, the sewage from your home and the rainwater in the street both end up

in the same sewer system. During big rainstorms, the surge of water through the

system is too much for our sewage treatment plants to process and so the raw

sewage is dumped straight into our waterways.

This is less of a problem in New York City than in other places, because our

drinking water comes from upstate reservoirs. However, in places like Long Island

that rely on groundwater for household use, pollution of this sort is a major

problem. Serious health problems can also result from raw sewage back-ups in

people's basements. And while the issue of private dumping of toxins into public

water systems seems to be a case of lax law enforcement against corporations that

can easily modify their practices, the combined sewage overflow problem is much

more difficult to address. A solution would require massive investment and major

public resources.

Duhigg's piece notes that the government has spent over $35 billion in the past

thirty years to improve the city's water quality, yet over $50 billion more would be

needed to prevent these combined sewer overflows. The issue is clearly one of

resources, technology and investment in infrastructure. This is yet another

example of a society that refuses to tax itself sufficiently to provide adequate

investment in the transportation, park, educational, library, health and


+Enlargevia Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/petroleumjelliffe/7730071/sizes/l/



More Columns >> environmental facilities that we require.

The recent financial crisis seems to have caused some scaling back of our high

rates of consumption, and we even see private savings rates starting to grow.

However, as a society we seem to be unwilling to admit our need to invest in

infrastructure. The American political culture currently rejects taxation almost as a

reflex at virtually every turn.

Governments' highly visible failures are one reason for this continued anti-tax

fervor. So too is the culture of consumption that gets people trampled to death at

Black Friday store sales the day after Thanksgiving. In the case of the combined

sewage problem, the $50 billion solution is probably not a great idea anyway. It is

based on a bricks-and-mortar approach typical of traditional engineering thinking

and technology that I believe is being supplanted by more ecologically-oriented,

creative and cost-effective pollution control technologies. One of the causes of

combined sewage overflows is that we have paved over land that used to absorb

water during rains. If we encourage green roofs and other decentralized ways of

collecting the water during storms, we can more easily reduce surges and avoid

spending at least part of the $50 billion that some think is needed.

Still, new large-scale investments are needed to improve treatment of sewage in

New York City. When this is added to funds needed for transportation, energy, new

school buildings, and other basic needs, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

What we need both in New York and nationwide is an infrastructure investment

strategy and financial model - sort of a business plan for the United States. For a

variety of reasons, our federal government does not have a capital budget. Our

cities and states have capital budgets, which separate funds allocated to long-term

projects from funds allocated to day-to-day expenses, but not the federal

government. The federal government has a single budget that incorporates both

immediate expenses and expenses that should be paid off over time into one lump

sum. Consequently, the U.S. doesn't have a means of managing its borrowing - all

borrowing is considered part of the federal deficit. Some of that borrowing is for

capital improvements that we should finance and some is for day-to-day expenses

that in good times should not be paid for with borrowed funds. In that respect we

are like those people that use their credit card to buy groceries and other

necessities, but don't pay the full balance on their bill each month.

State and local government debt is relatively transparent and is analyzed and rated

by private firms that guide investors. The ratings of state and local finances by

private rating agencies such as Moody's influence the interest rates that states and

cities must pay to borrow money. This serves to encourage at least a little bit of

financial planning by these governments. But the federal government has no

similar incentive to plan their long-term borrowing or think about the investments

the nation truly needs and can actually afford.

The issues of combined sewage overflow and the capital needs of our society as a

whole require that we give some thought to a long-term capital investment plan for

this complicated business called the United States of America. I know that our

policy and investment decisions are based on a wide variety of political factors that

have nothing to do with rationality and even common sense. But shouldn't our

national, state and local infrastructure investment decisions be based on a plan

that looks realistically at our capacity to generate the revenues needed for

investment and the priorities among capital facility needs? I do not think we are

rich enough to do everything, and I know we need to start making some strategic

nyc’s environmental finance business takes another step: thesc32/documents/ny observer all...

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