Al Gore said manhattan is going to be under water soon.

The Hudson River Park Loves You and Invites you to experience Manhattan's west side waterfront!

The Hudson River Park is New York City's, largest public park in addition to Central Park and runs 5 miles along Manhattan's west side from Battery Park City to Clinton Cove at 59th Street. Offering a greenway and bikepath along the entire stretch of the park, The Hudson River Park Trust offers public events and educational opportunities all summer long!

As one of the education supervisor's at the Hudson River Park, I would love to share with Treehugger, the amazing environmental and educational opportunities that the park has to offer this summer!

In addition to establishing a Clean Marine Sanctuary Campaign within the past year and offering public fishing programs, this summer marks our first foray into educational workshops on a variety of issues. The first workshop, just completed this weekend focused on urban composting, sustainable agriculture and native plant gardening in NYC. Our next workshop will revolve around restorative ecology and art, inviting artists and park patrons to create scultpures and art statements from recycled and found objects (July 22nd from 12-5pm on Pier 45). Finally, the August workshop will center on a "Do It YOurself" ethic, complete with a recycle-a-bike workshop, recycled knitting and sustainable architecture and building tutorials. (August 22nd from 12-5pm)

All workshops are held on Pier 45 between Christopher Street and West 10th Street along the Hudson.

For more information about environmental education at the Hudson RIver Park email me at ckennedy@hrpt.state.ny.us or visit our website at www.hudsonriverpark.org

Unlike Californians, who talk and talk about the environment before getting into their cars (or Hummers, in the case of the governor) we actually take the subway.

so sig,
because you take the subway, there are no cars in NYC? Just like no on uses BART in the Bay Area? And at least we Californians talk about the environment, instead of talking about how great new york is or what is the best subway route.
get off the soap box.

I left NYC in August of 2005 because for me, there was an underlying sense that things were not environmentally ok. Since NYC is a world city, its pulse is very global and its devilish details revealed an overall awareness that the environment needs help. If something were to go wrong (flooding, hurricane winds, drought) NYC is not a place where you'd want to be. I felt something like this might be imminent and I had to leave. NYC is environmentally aware. Many businesses are switching to wind power generated from upstate wind farms. Biking is popular and the odds of having a safe commute depends on your route. It seems that NYC businesses know that green business is good business, however I still see antifreeze running into the street drains.

NYC is a double edged sword.

Its got great public transit, hybrid cabs, efficient and sometimes intelligent space use, great parks that promote ecological awareness (Prospect Park in Brooklyn) and residents mad about their window planters and roof gardens. There are food co-ops that buy local/organic/sustainable goods to sell to the community as well as rampant farmer's markets all over town nearly every day of the week, not to mention many organic/sustainable/local food themed and promoting restaurants. In my old neighborhood (Park Slope. I didn't move too far away. Just to Bay Ridge) they have community composting as well as gardening and farming collectives. People on bikes year round (in varying numbers) are a common sight.

On the downside, litter is a massive problem, as is dumping of all kinds of materials that can pollute. Lots of people have cars that aren't warranted (i.e. H2s, etc...), noise pollution from cars, alarms, planes and the like. The cost of living is manageable if you live simply, but if you live beyond that, it can get ridiculously and unnecessarily expensive. That is sometimes aggravated by trying to buy responsible products that are vastly inflated in price. The value of property is disproportionate and leads to gentrification forcing people to move other places that require longer and sometimes ridiculous commutes (up to 2.5 hours 1 way for some I know!!!). There is also lots of waste in food and packaging with all of the delivery and take out options available. Like the rest of the country, overconsumption is a perpetual problem.

For my part, I do have a roof garden where I grow 5 different kinds of veggies plus some flowers. I have a composter as well. The common areas of the 18 unit building where I live use compact fluorescent bulbs as do many of the residents. Also, there is a big push on the state, city and local levels to promote and give substantial incentives for wind and solar energy. Both my food co-op and my apartment building are looking into it seriously.

So, good and bad and lots of us are trying to make it better.

As a lifetime resident of NYC who thinks the city does a lot to be more environmentally responsible, there is one thing that really gets me: No public recyling!

The parks dept. (I have heard) recently began placing recycling containers in the parks (though I haven't seen any) but I want them along with garbage cans on street corners. I'm sick of holding onto my empty bottles until I get home and watching others toss them in the trash.

On the same topic, I am under the impression that most businesses do not recyle.

The biggest problem is that the city is not as safe as it could be for cyclists. It's relatively small in area; my home in Brooklyn is only 7 miles from my office in Times Square, but biking here is very dangerous, with few bike lanes. To top it off, most of the city's skyscrapers do not allow people to bring their bikes inside. Since bicycle theft is a big concern, this discourages people from biking to and from work.

New York needs to reduce auto traffic, especially in Manhattan. Times Square is a pedestrian's nightmare. Congestion pricing for private vehicles would be great.

There is also a mentality that cars own the road. Pedicabs, bicycles, scooters and other forms of alternative transportation are treated as second class vehicles. Bike lanes are totally ignored.

Most egregious is that hotels do not recycle and they are massive purveyors of the single serving in a plastic container EVERYTHING, from water to butter and jam.

One buffer to throwing the glass and palstic into the public waster bin is a poor and/or homeless person will come along and collect those bottles for deposit $.

There is a vast wealthy and arrogant population that wastes ostentatiously. From keeping their large cars iddling to running the heaters in the summertime because the air conditioning has made the room too cold, running the a/c all year because it's too loud and dirty to open the windows. It goes on and on. Sort of a pet peeve of mine. And a wave of the hand dismisses any talk about it.

grrrr.

Check out this article about greening your NYC life (an interview with the author of The Big Green Apple): Eco-Friendly Living in New York City.

The nation’s first urban Audubon Center is located inside Prospect Park's 1905 Beaux Arts Boathouse. The Center offers a busy calendar of engaging education programs, as well as a café and gift shop. From the Boathouse, visitors can tour the Park’s watercourse by pedal boat or the Park’s whisper-quiet turn-of-the-century style electric boat Independence. From a vantage point out on the water or along the well-marked nature trails, visitors can spy on as many as 250 species of birds, including many rare and unusual ones.

A 585-acre urban oasis, the boasts a stunning array of natural features, including Brooklyn’s only forest, a 60-acre lake, shaded hillsides, beautiful waterfalls, and rolling meadows.

The Prospect Park Zoo,is home to nearly 400 animals of more than 80 species. At 18th century Lefferts Historic House and garden, children and adults enjoy hands-on activities while learning about the history of Brooklyn and its inhabitants. And remember totake a spin on the Park’s vintage, hand-carved Carousel!

For mre information, call the Park hotline at (718) 965-8999 or visit www.prospectpark.org

Massive influx of affluent, young, wannabe hip, B&T hordes. Yep, if you weren't born on the island, you're just another B&T clogging up the city. These hordes know how cool it is to talk green, but they are the farthest thing from it. Eating out FOR EVERY MEAL, not having a clue nor care for what recycling really is, and buying heaps and heaps of trend-o-the-moment crap at every opportunity. And one more thing... to all you immigrants who line up for those mediocre Magnolia cupcakes, get a friggin life. Go home, pickup a cookbook, and try making your own. I went to school with one of the original owners who bought the spot from Bird Jungle and she still laughs at the absurdity of you people.

New York City is fast becoming a hub of Certified Green Restaurants™. In May, Time Magazine featured an article on the Green Restaurant Association and hilighted a NYC Certified Green Restaurant™ called the Candle Cafe. Just a week ago, the Statue of Liberty food service and a chain of restaurants called Le Pain Quotidien, with 10 NYC locations, signed onto the Green Restaurant Association and will make four new environmental improvements per year, per location over the next five years. By the end of the year, they should be Certified Green Restaurants™. NYC has been the capital for dining; it is fast becoming the capital for Dining Green.

Not so good, but we're getting better, as the elderly gent in Monty Python's Holy Grail insisted. Olga, Dave, Diana & D have touched on much already.

But some of us are trying to do something. Transportation Alternatives is a long-running favorite (pedestrian/cycling issues); a new org is the New York City Streets Renaissance. My own neighborhood has a new group, Upper Green Side, which is pushing to get farmers markets, bike lanes, and more in the Upper East Side.

I'll say this. It feels like NYC is trying....

There was a woman in NYC who was frustrated that green areas of New York were not commonly known so she created a green map for the city. People responded with "you forgot such and such place" and so she expanded it and then she had people contacting her to find out how they could do a green map for their city and so, GreenMap.org is what it has become -an international eco phenomenon:

http://www.greenmap.org/home/home.html

Here is the NYC one:

http://greenapplemap.org/

You don't have to live in a city, to create a green map of your area -it can be anywhere and she provides the icons and such to help you. Schools do it of their hometowns and one city organization could not let its youth out for safety reasons so they did a green map of their building!

Anyway, really neat proactive idea that gets the community involved and informed about the environment.

The air in NYC is terrible. Too many busses and trucks on the island cause the air to be extremely full of particulates.

Bicyclists are treated terribly in this city as well - police are constantly arrested cyclists and they never prosecute any accidents where cars or trucks hit cyclists.

People litter everywhere.

Yes, there is recycling pick up, but there are no public recycling bins or trash cans with a recycling section anywhere.

Did I mention the air here is terrible?

GREEN MANHATTAN
Why New York is the greenest city in the U.S.
By David Owen
Published in The New Yorker 10/18/04

http://www.greenbelt.org/downloads/resources/newswire_11_04GreenManhattan.pdf

I agree that there's a serious lack of recycling bins throughout the city. This offense is made particularly grievous by the fact that sodas, water and other drinks in recyclable containers are sold in mass quantities by street vendors, especially in the more touristy areas; these cans and bottles probably account for a significant amount of the city's waste. True New Yorkers also know that many low-income individuals, some of them homeless, scavenge for cans and bottles in the garbage cans so they can turn them in for money; the process would be a lot safer and more sanitary if the recyclables were already separated.

Something sorely lacking in NYC, and dear to your heart Treehugger, are trees. There are large swathes of Manhattan where barely a single tree can be seen. And the few that are found are "weed" trees that have somehow survived the onslaught of developers and city planning. The few sections of Manhattan with lots o' trees (like the West Village) are noticeably more attractive and pleasant. Some sections of avenues, like Madison Avenue opposite the Morgan Library, are clearly more attractive because someone decided to plant trees there decades ago. The Bloomberg administration could have left a lasting legacy by planting and maintaining trees during it's 8 year reign. But I guess that idea was just too simple for these politicos.

We must provide education to low income communities about sustainable living. Even recycling education would help! Youngsters see their friends disrespectfully littering - I don't see an awareness that the street and the earth isn't only theirs - it's for all - a legacy to pass on to future generations. I'd also like NYC to OUTLAW that styrofoam packaging (like from Chinese joints) which is non-recyclable.

Judith in East Harlem

So Scon, because you talk about the environment, it means Californians are taking better care of it? That's plain idiotic. Arnie talks and talks and talks but, as the Sierra Club has reported on many an occasion, it hardly translates into actions (and don't get me started on his fleet of Hummers).
I was in California last year (San Rafael County, I believe), where everyone talked and talked about peak oil, the environment, etc. Of course, we were in the middle of nowhere, so everyone had to get in their cars afterwards to go home and several of the people there had an SUV. What a joke.
And yes, I do think a city where most people take public transportation and don't even OWN a car is environmentally better than the opposite. I've lived in Manhattan ten years, have never driven a car in all that time, use clean electricity for my apartment (ConEd Solutions), recycle and take the subway to work and very often walk to the movies, restaurants, etc. And I'm a pretty regular New Yorker.
Again I'll mention the Sierra Club, which has said NY is one of the most energy efficient-cities in the country.
Perfect? Nope (I agree with the person who mentioned the lack of recycling in public spaces -- it's very annoying), but it's a lot better than most other places where all people do is talk.
Talk is not going to solve global warming. Action will.