JUST BREATHE: A Community Forum on Brooklyn’s Health, Energy and Environment

Saturday, May 17, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

Currently, New York City stands in violation of federal Clean Air standards.

As a result, asthma rates in some of New York City’s communities of color are four times the national average.

We invite you to come hear first hand from medical, environmental, academic and civil rights experts how to reverse this disturbing trend and to become stakeholders in New York’s environmental and energy future.

An event brought to you by:

SHARE (Safe Healthy Affordable Reliable Energy), Brooklyn Branch NAACP and Medger Evers College

Location:

Medgar Evers College
Presidential Conference Center, Room B1008
1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn

RSVP to Craig Wilson at rsvp@shareny.org

Tuesday May 6th is Idle-Free Day in NYC!

Press Conference:
Tuesday, May 6th
10am
City Hall Steps
Go here to see the flyer for the press conference.

As we know from the post this week, NYC’s air quality is, well, ahem, sub-par. Okay, it’s horrible. 43% of Brooklynites are at risk of health problems each day because of pollution — most of which is from vehicles’ tailpipes.

Find out more truths about idling and how it harms your health, hurts air quality, wastes fuel, and is against the law!

Join a growing chorus of New Yorkers who are tired of breathing exhaust from idling cars and trucks!

Here are some resources on what you can do if you are: an individual, a school, a community group, a business, or a policy-maker.

Stay tuned at the IFNY website or on the Idle-Free NYC blog.

This past April, the DOT presented their designs to Community Board 8 for a re-designed Vanderbilt Avenue. While the idea of safe bike lanes and greenstreets in their plan was well-meaning, the designs’ plans for on-street bike lanes have struck a chord with residents in the area and bike enthusiasts.

A petition has just started circulating where constituents and NYC residents can make their voice known on the re-development of the bike paths. Here is your chance to help make the streets of Brooklyn safer.

From the petition:

We are gracious that bike lanes were included in the design. However, these are on-street, unprotected bike lanes. In other words, these are dangerous and thus NOT the gold standard.

We, the undersigned, therefore demand a redesign to include protected bike lanes (either on opposite sides of the Avenue, or immediately adjacent to each other, on one side of the street.)

This project is at the point where your voice is needed.

Please sign the petition here: Safer Streets on Vanderbilt Avenue

Full text of the petition and a little back-story after the jump…

He was against it before he voted for it. Sounds awfully familiar, right? This, at least, is a flip-flop that makes some sense, unlike John Kerry’s inexplicable comments in the lead-up to the 2004 Presidential election.

City Councilman Kendall Stewart; who represents Flatbush, East Flatbush, Flatlands; opined in a Brooklyn Daily Eagle op-ed this past Tuesday — Earth Day — that based on the evidence presented him, including facts brought to his attention by the Campaign for New York’s Future, he could not and would not oppose congestion pricing.

The legendary Public Broadcasting System (PBS) channel, Thirteen/WNET has just re-launched a newly re-designed website. In honor of the launch coinciding with Earth Day, the website producers have jammed the site with incredible green content from recent programming and other stories spanning many years.

One of the featured stories/videos on the site is the New York Voices piece on the Newtown Creek/Greenpoint Oil Disaster that GBK originally covered back when it first aired.