All Green, All The Time

"Going green" is so hot right now. So hot, in fact, that it might be losing its impact-at least if we keep hearing that the greening of America is taking place but aren't even aware of how we're a part of this widespread process. While the craze to become environmentally friendly is rooted in noble causes, as a buzzword it has manufactured its own desensitization. Yet, the sustainability initiatives and actions taking place in New York City, all loosely connected simply by their goal of contributing to this greening, have alleviated at least some of my skepticism. As we become increasingly surrounded by them, maybe we'll finally feel like we can actually contribute to this ambiguous greening process we hear so much about.

A bigger poster telling us to recycle is going to be as ignored as all the ones that came before it, and PrezBo posing in his tight-fitting "Remember This" recycling T-shirt is only going to make us disregard his e-mail next time he tells us that steps are beginning to take place to recruit for and establish a task force that will eventually someday get together to talk about how one day they will contribute to the greening of the planet. But if we live among buildings whose roofs are made out of solar panels and ride in hybrid cabs and attend a school that replaces all its energy with wind power, won't our individual contributions to the system seem to make more sense, make more of an impact, and happen more frequently? And, eventually, (hopefully) become the norm?

Last month, Mayor Bloomberg announced a new partnership between his office and Columbia's Earth Institute, a relationship fostered in order to aid the mayor's new Office of Sustainability in acting according to the best urban environment research, as provided by the Urban Design Lab. The partnership, with the Earth Institute offering its resources pro bono, could have a profound impact in diverse areas, from air pollution to architecture, once it moves out of the realm of research and into one of action. The resources of the city government combined with the inter-disciplinary expertise of the UDL can help create a future in which contributions between policy makers, academics, and planners are considered necessary for maximizing the preservation of not just our cities, but of the underdeveloped areas where this reciprocity is practically nonexistent.

"First, in order to be able to take advantage of such densely settled city and create new compact measures to reduce its ecological footprint, the city is in the stage of understanding the city fully," says Steve Cohen, executive director of the Earth Institute, who talked with me about the collaboration. The initial step is to take on climate change through a greenhouse gas inventory that will measure the carbon emissions from city government operations "from electricity consumption in city buildings to the tailpipe exhaust of city-owned ambulances," (as it says on their official press release), hoping to expand it into an inventory of the whole city's carbon emissions to be completed, ideally, in six months.

The efficiency that already exists in the compact nature of the city's apartments and the 80 percent of people who walk or take public transportation is spreading into vertical and horizontal expansion. As Manhattan real estate never sleeps and just keeps growing, the continual vertical growth allows for environmentally friendly design and architecture, and various new skyscrapers have seized this opportunity to go green. The first building to receive a Gold LEED certified rating for "core and shell and interiors" in New York City is the Hearst Tower, which is designed with features as innovatively efficient as they are awesome. Building traits include special glass that keeps out solar radiation while maximizing natural lighting, sensors that monitor every employee's activity in order to maximize energy use by turning off lights or computers, and a roof that collects rain water to reduce the amount dumped into the city's sewer system. The Bank of America building, which is scheduled for completion in 2008, reports to be utilizing recycled materials in its structure as well as many of the technologies employed by the Hearst Tower.

It goes without saying that New York City's initiatives are part of the cutting edge and can initiate trends in sustainability research, policy, and practical implementation that can have profound global implications. But the effects the city's advancements can have if they trickle down onto us, its citizens, are equally as important if they influence (or at least guilt) us into respecting, and feeling genuinely aware of, a new culture of "green." The cycle that begins with large-scale innovation can continue if it fosters individual awareness, that which can later be channeled into further large-scale movement.

To conclude with something close to home: just last month, NYU became the largest purchaser of wind power of any university in the country (and the biggest in the city) through its deal with ConEdison to acquire 118 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy. Something tells me that hearing about this might actually make us all believe one thing: the Columbia administration needs to do more than put on a T-shirt.