NYC Green Maps + Climate Action

Our work in NYC for climate health continues in unique ways and now, we are excited to share some news that will extend our reach and connect us with the UN Climate conference, COP 26, and the NGO-oriented ‘Climate Fringe’ that will take place this fall.

Our director was invited to the climate-themed TED Countdown conference in Edinburgh in mid-October! This set in motion a plan to stay in Scotland for the COP and work with local Green Map projects and the many climate policy makers and activists who will be in and near Glasgow in early November! We’ll share plans and our public events that are live, hybrid and online as it gets closer. Special thanks to Ms. Clinch of Tacit Design in Dunoon and Mr. Lovelock of Glasgow Eco Trust where the Green Map is already underway, using OGM2, our cool new mapping platform and its campaign feature to engage people in creating it!

Want to help? Your contributions on July 14 of $100 - $1000 will be matched by GlobalGiving and will be dedicated to our work in Scotland this fall. Donate soon after 9:00 AM ET while matching funds last and give Green Map a big boost!

This season, we started a Recovery Map for our own Lower East Side neighborhood and demonstrated how to use the symbol set we created in 2020 to chart public health, recuperation and recovery at C2M2, the Cities, Covid, Mitigation and Mapping Symposium hosted by American Association of Geographers and Harvard University in June - find links to each day of this event as well as our most recent OGM2 Demo (with a sneak peek at the App in development!!) on our Blog. You’ll also see our recent Living Knowledge 9 presentation on the United Nations SDGs and Green Map on that page (our how to video for leading bike tours was also presented there).

Remember our East River Park data gathering project from our last report? LES Breathe has now deployed the first three air quality sensors to gather baseline data on PM2.5, temperature, etc. on the Lower East Side - the lower the number the better on this PurpleAir map. It’s clear that this environmental justice community needs lots more trees to cool and clean the air, yet the plan calls for nearly 1,000 mature trees to be cut down. Our 2019 campaign for more street trees has already placed 500 new saplings, but the need to protect what we have and plant more is dire - this June was the hottest ever for North America!

July finds us planning with the whole team at the Dutch Kills Loop, an ecological repurposing of disused infrastructure in Queens, enjoying NYC’s many beaches, community gardens and concerts under the stars, pitching in on open streets and connecting with community, always with the realities of climate health in mind.

Thank you for helping us be an active part of the solution! - our best wishes for a healthy and restorative season!