Katherine Bagley at Inside Climate News writes
NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio pushes environmental and economic justice in sustainability plan:
Environmental justice advocates may have found a climate champion in Mayor Bill De Blasio, who this week made income equality the centerpiece of his sweeping sustainability plan for New York City.
The plan, known as OneNYC, is a rebranding and revamping of the city's eight-year-old sustainability agenda PlaNYC, but the emphasis on economic justice came as an unexpected swerve. Urban development and environmental experts told InsideClimate News that OneNYC is the most ambitious strategy in the nation to link the fight against income inequality with climate action and may inspire officials in other municipalities to follow.
De Blasio's plan is a municipal-level equivalent to the thorny discussions between rich and poor nations over an international climate deal. There is now growing recognition that a climate deal that fails to lift poor nations out of energy poverty would not succeed. Guaranteeing people access to clean electricity would promote economic development, uplift the lives of the poor—and address the economic justice issues that have plagued climate progress.
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"The revolutionary thing here is the linking of all of it to equality," said Rob Freudenberg, director of environment and energy at the Regional Plan Association, of De Blasio's effort. The plan is "novel and unique," and a "great start establishing a new vision."
However, he added, "a lot of lip service has been given to solving environmental justice...People are right to say, 'Let's see how the actions link up to the visions.'" [...]
"For a while, environmental issues were being discussed in a silo," said Juan Camilo Osorio, director of research for the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. "When Hurricane Sandy hit, environmental justice advocates pointed out how we couldn't think about physical vulnerability to climate change without thinking about local economics and inequality."
Connecting sustainability with resiliency and equality opens the door to "increasing the effectiveness of the work being done," Camilo Osorio said. [...]
The plan is heavy on goals—laying out some 200 initiatives—but light on specifics of how they’ll be met. Missing are timetables, budgets, funding sources and assignments of which agencies will handle which goals.
"Successfully achieving our ambitious goals requires a roadmap that allows us to measure progress," said Marcia Bystryn, executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, in statement. "The de Blasio administration should quickly follow up with an implementation plan."
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—"Crying wolf": basing war on lies:
One has to remember that this war would've been a hell of a lot more difficult without Kuwait as a staging area. The US needs allies to undertake complex military operations far from its shores. Yet this war has shaken US credibility throughout the globe, and now that the US has cried "wolf", it may be increasingly more difficult to rally world support the next time we face conflict (even if legitimate).
So that's why it's so important for the US to find the WMDs Iraq supposedly possessed, regardless whether the Might Wurlitzer and administration officials try to shift the discussion to Iraq's "liberation". The world is still waiting to see whether the US lied to get its war on.
Which is why the administration continues its pathetic attempts to confuse the public about the lack of WMDs in Iraq. The latest effort surrounds the barrels found in northern Iraq that supposedly tested as nerve agents. News reports this morning (predictably) indicate the barrels did not contain banned weapons.
Tweet of the Day
Big of the Baltimore cops to re-run civil unrest for the benefit of reporters busy with the #WHCD
— @ddayen
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Turns out there's some interest in Jeb's SuperPAC after all, though
Greg Dworkin notes Nate Silver's comment on what Jeb's money hasn't done for him so far. Rubio becomes flavor of the month. Jeb stumbles into a pro-"death panel" stance. Polling on Iran, marriage equality. W thinks he should be heard on the Middle East. Speaking of marriage equality, arguments before SCOTUS tomorrow.
Armando discusses Court politics, plus observations on both conservative and liberal aspersions against Clinton.
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