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NY Mayor Commits To Reduce Emissions 40% By 2030
dkatana writes: New York mayor Bill de Blasio pledged this week to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030. He made the announcement at the start of a two-day conference on climate change at the Vatican. He was in Rome by invitation of Pope Francis, who has become a hero to the environmental movement and has used his moral authority and enormous popularity to focus world attention on climate change and its effects on the poor. "I believe fundamentally in the notion of giving our private sector friends an opportunity to come along peacefully. And if that's not going to work, to put strong mandates and clear mandates on. And I believe, but the way, that that has tremendous public support." de Blasio said. Nearly three quarters of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions come from energy used to heat, cool, and power buildings, making building retrofits a central component of any plan to dramatically reduce emissions.
I also pledge for New York to decrease emissions.
I'm guessing they'll "gift" the Bronx to New Jersey
I can think of that have less of a negative impact on the poor than "A" GW. In fact, if we could make the World warmer, it would probably help the poor more than about anything else we could do, other than allowing more grain to be exported from the USA.
> NY Mayor Commits To Reduce Emissions 40% By 2030
Mayor promises to eat better: less beans, more fibre.
Yet, somehow I doubt that New York's mayor speaks for Wall Street.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Good for your Mayor. Eating better is always and good thing to pick up.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So THAT'S the reason behind that soda ban!
a lot of stores and and other businesses keep their doors open and blow the cold AC air into the street. he can start with them
Didn't see what base year they are going to use.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio pledged this week the mayors succeeding him will [to] reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
by that time, 40% of New York may be under water or empty.
global warming or disaster, when New Yorkers have no jobs, they won't be there.
Reducing garbage-generated methane would have a big impact compared to solely focusing on CO2.
Your intrastate borders and 1 mile distant offshore ocean property is now solid 50ft contaminant walls and militarized by the US Army, USCG and NRO, sorry.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the mayor who has an industrial air conditioner blowing into his limo so it's nice and chilly when he gets in?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Too bad the Mayor isn't looking at encouraging telecommuting for those people who can telecommute. Think what it would do to bridge and tunnel traffic.
de Blasio should reduce his emissions by 100% starting now, damn marxist.
Most people increase emissions as they age. Might I suggest trying Bean-No to start?
He is the worst mayor in the last 20 years of NYC.
Growing square footage, population... good luck.
Not to mention the climate swings that have been increasing since 2004, requiring both more cooling in the summer and more heating in the winter.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc...
Maybe they can build vertical solar farms, and pass an ordinance that the sun has to shine horizontally...
Does either the Vatican or New York City have the investment funds ($10's of Billions) required to make the investment required to achieve that, even if they had a specific plan, which they don't?
I have one.
The problem with this is the same with all government or bureaucratic statements, is it is an "unfunded mandate".
I have a suggestion for the Vatican and New York City. Co-sign a municipal bond for a system I already designed that will achieve all the goals they state with no plan at all.
JJ
01rocket@gte.net
All he really is stating is that he will move he sources of pollution emissions to other areas. For one, while electric vehicles produce no direct emissions, they actually create more overall emissions in their production and for the generation and delivery of the power they consume. ( I believe that factoid comes from an article here on /., so you know it must be true!)
Was the first thing I thought, when I read the title.
The big clues are right there in the summary. It's probably doable without a vast amount of effort since a lot of it will come down to insulation, ducting and awnings or similar window shading. There is already a subway in place so improvements there come down to better equipment instead of expensive tunnelling or land aquistion.
What makes 40% or so possible is buildings constructed with no thought for energy consumption in some cases need only minor modifications to for a major reduction in use. We've seen that in other place with "no-brainers" such as painting a roof white making a major difference to AC use.
It's not hard to use less if a lot is being thrown away.
Growing square footage, population... good luck.
It's a lot easier to be more efficient in higher density areas. A metro rail line for example can replace 100,000 cars, and anything electric can be offset by buying carbon credits. Not saying it will be easy, but it's good to see someone is trying.
When de Blasio says "I believe fundamentally in the notion of giving our private sector friends an opportunity to come along peacefully. And if that's not going to work, to put strong mandates and clear mandates on." he is saying what every totalitarian leftist says (i.e. "I believe everybody should be allowed to peacefully surrender before I force them to do what I want").
He is NOT saying he will compel people to obey the laws the people have passed, he is saying he will compel people to obey HIM. Must be borrowing a pen and a phone from Obama. This stuff of leaders disregarding all the laws the people passed, and enforcing rules the dear leaders and their minons pulled from their own posteriors is straight-out of the maximum-leader pocket book, and not surprising given that de Blasio has long self-identified as a Marxist
The people of NYC deserve the reduction in liberty and rise in crime and slums they are getting.
Seriously what is with mayors of large cities acting like they are higher than the governor and trying to legislate things better handled at a higher level?
Growing square footage, population... good luck.
It's a lot easier to be more efficient in higher density areas. A metro rail line for example can replace 100,000 cars, and anything electric can be offset by buying carbon credits. Not saying it will be easy, but it's good to see someone is trying.
Read the article, and then read the linked document I provided on the sourcing of greenhouse gasses in NYC: It's predominantly from buildings. Adding square footage by rebuilding up is going to increase this; even if you do a "green building" as you build higher, you're going to increase heating pressure on your neighbors as you block their sunlight.
Use of heating oil and boilers is the reason there are greenhouse gasses from buildings; a secondary sourcing of greenhouse gasses comes from summer cooling costs. If you look at the graphs (again, in the linked document), you'll see this called out a "CDD + HDD", which are the total number of days in which greenhouse expenditures must go up for combined cooling and heating, per year. These have been increasing since 2012, and we are climbing out of the 2012 CDD+HDD minima for the current sunspot cycle, so this will be unlikely to reverse trend before 2.5 years from now: expect larger pendulum swings, resulting in higher CDD+HDD until the 11 year cycle starts in the other direction.
Bottom line is: more people = more energy usage, and you aren't going to "green" or rebuild every skyscraper in Manhattan over night -- if at all -- without an insane amount of investment (as in: demolition and rebuilding, which for sky scrapers tends to be expensive).
You could potentially make a (small) dent in the proposed reduction numbers by getting rid of all gasoline vehicles, and replacing them with electric, or forcing people onto public transportation. However, this is already reaching its limits; rich people simply pay the penalty, rather than foregoing private transportation. This is probably great for the city coffers in terms of revenue, but does nothing for the environment, even if that's the excuse being used to enrich the city coffers. There is no shortage of rich people in Manhattan.
You could make a (much larger) dent in the proposed reduction numbers by moving from heating oil to electric, and from fossil fuels for cooling energy.
However...
This is deck-chair shifting, in the same way that you can select "green energy producers" on your power bill, pay a higher cost, and thus force other energy consumers to be "less green". Further, the carbon debt under grid loading is a green energy swap; that is, the energy you use will be from a fossil fuel plant when the grid is loaded, and then you will "pay it back" by accounting those kWh as "borrowed", and then later "pay them back" by accounting other people's green energy use as your own (and theirs as fossil fuel usage that you "borrowed" from them).
Likewise, moving to electric -- and the electrics used in the subway system and other public transportation -- is what's called "carbon shifting". You move the generation of the electricity to elsewhere on the grid, and so the greenhouse gas generation has been NIMBY'ed away into someone else's jurisdiction, making you definitionally "greener".
Short of moving away from fossil fuels, while simultaneously keeping up with increased demand for energy -- and let's not kid ourselves, renewables will not cut this Gordian Knot, we are talking nuclear or space-based solar -- there's just no way to *ACTUALLY* hit those 40% numbers, with the current building and population trends.
and stop blowing all that hot air from his mouth? :)