NYC Green Maps + Climate Action

At Green Map NYC, we create events as well as mapmaking resources that connect climate and community. 

Here are some highlights of the Green Infrastructure Tour that we created recently for LES History Month and Jane’s Walk, thanks to photos by Ms. Sano, a long time friend to Green Map.

For this event, we partnered with the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, which is where our tour began. We followed a route we initiated in 2020 for Open House New York (see map below), adding new sites and features including air quality and temperature sensors to check along the way (thanks to LES Breathe, the group that placed sensors around the neighborhood).

Of course, we started in a community garden, the lush La Plaza Cultural, where rainwater collection, composting, abundant greenery, a pond and French Drains help retain stormwater, which is what green infrastructure is all about. 

A historic map illuminated changes to the groundwater and tidal creeks. Everyone gained insights into the flow of our sewage towards the Manhattan Pumping Station after walking through the Riis Houses sunken playgrounds that can retain stormwater, noting the new resiliency infrastruction (elevated utilities, etc). Participants exchanged knowledge of everything from the new 'saddlebag' heat pump window air conditioners to local food security (which includes the Free Fridges, a mutual aid solution to food waste and want. 

Thanks to you, events like this help engage everyone. We very much appreciate your ongoing support! 

Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine, and to all others around the world who are caught up in conflicts that are rooted in fossil foolishness. We have known our continued dependencies fuel so many ills, layering injustice and war on top of environmental and public health degradation. Between that and the crushing reality that our planet’s climate is destabilized, our energy choices must be made with our common future in mind.

Luckily, we don't have to drive ourselves to extinction! There are so many resources available today to promote sustainability by communities, companies and individuals, it’s possible and practical to switch to a variety of renewable sources of energy, including human power!

Thanks to the alternative-rich iconography utilized on locally made Green Maps, we’ve all been charting convivial ways to get around without a car, connecting people with the beauty of nature near home, showing local examples of solar, geothermal and energy efficiency, and illuminating opportunities for reducing our own carbon footprint and connecting with local groups advocating for justice and sweeping policy change in government, business, housing and public institutions.

In this way, Green Map System helps inspire local action that can impact effective global policy and help form larger communities of practice that address everything from access to clean drinking water to healthier oceans and education for a more sustainable planet.

GlobalGiving donors - if you want to see positive change accelerate locally, start at home and create a Green Map! Every community has positive efforts underway - you can put them on the map and make energy saving and renewables visible and desirable. It's a great way to help everyone do their part, meet people who want to share their knowledge and perspectives, and empower your community to move towards renewables and carbon smart practices.

We would be happy to help you get started! There’s a new Quick Start Guide for the Open Green Map platform we have been developing with your support at new.opengreenmap.org - it walks you through the steps to get started. Or, pop in for Green Map office hours and ask your questions - the next will be held on Wednesday April 6, 10 AM EDT, use this link: bit.ly/meet-gms422. Thanks to you, making a Green Map remains free for non-commercial projects!

Let’s use our power to change the ways we source and use our power!

Links:

• More from Oak Bay CA & how the Glenlyon school uses Green Maps!

Hello to donors of our NYC program!

The time for climate action is now! Underscored by the disappointing outcomes of the United Nations #COP26 climate conference, and also, refreshed by being in Scotland and England for a month this season, we’re ready for the hard work to come.

In September, Climate Week took place and we hosted a Green Infrastructure Walk, based on the map we produced as a self-guided tour for Open House New York. We also pitched in at the Dutch Kills Loop, where Green Map is on the core team for this exciting regenerative project, along with Newtown Creek Alliance, the Smiling Hogshead Ranch and Interval Projects. Get a glimpse of the most recent event here and see what’s coming up at DutchKillsLoop.org.  

We also co-presented with Glasgow and Dunoon Scotland Green Mapmakers during Climate Week, sharing our climate-centric work in NYC and worldwide! See the video at GreenMap.org/cop26, along with our one hour program of short videos from 5 countries - Cuba, Japan, Israel, UK and US. Presented in November in Glasgow, it shares how our adaptable, freely accessible tools support climate action and healthier communities.

Our posts COP #1 and COP #2 have great images and details from our workshops and interactions in the UK. There, we had the pleasure of working in person with local leaders who have been active with Green Map for nearly 20 years! Our former neighbor is now a Green Party Member of the Scottish Parliament and MSP Burgess joined our workshops and met with all our active project leaders - we even marched together in the massive demonstration encouraging the climate negotiators to strengthen our common future.

For our ongoing work, it was especially important to meet with the GISCollective - Alexandra and Bogdan are the open source developers of our mapping platform and its new “What’s Nearby” app. Now in beta, it’s free at bit.ly/OGMapp and works everywhere there is a Green Map. Together with this duo plus Hannah and team from Dunoon’s Green Map, we worked together assessing ways to extend the impacts and support climate adaptation and community wellbeing at the local level.

We’re so glad our director was invited to the TED Countdown climate conference - this event led to the full month of activities. Our thanks to all the homestay hosts, event producers, climate activists and Green Mapmakers who made this a high impact month. 

We’re so thankful to you for your ongoing support! We’re sending this before Thanksgiving in the hopes that you will peruse some of the videos and links during the break, and then, pitch in on Giving Tuesday - November 30th! GlobalGiving is boosting all contributions made from 12:01am ET to 11:59pm, whether it's a one time gift or a new recurring donation. It’s a huge help to us!

Watch for more news before the year is over, and our best wishes for a green and healthy holiday season.

Links:

• From NYC to the BBC - Green Map at COP26 (in Arabic)
• Find two videos and the planning that went in our COP26 work

It’s been a good summer at Green Map in NYC, in between epic rain storms and air quality alerts that bring climate issues to the forefront. When we look back to our first climate-focused map made in 2006, we asked, “What’s your dream for the future - the Baked Apple or a healthy, beautiful city?” We’re still asking! And we’re gearing up for a busy autumn with your help (donations up to $50 are boosted 50% this week).

NYC’s newest Green Map project

We made this map in support of Stuy Cove, a treasured ‘food forest’ that has fed wild birds, butterflies and humans for nearly 20 years. This amazing native plant garden is on the move, and hundreds of plants are being distributed to other gardens, schoolyards and tree beds around the city. We wanted everyone to see where this biological richness continues to flourish, so we created a Campaign survey that sends responses to OGM2, our mapping platform (see bit.ly/SCplants). This makes it easy for each location to record the status of the transplants on this map-in-progress. See it at bit.ly/scplantmap - it’s expected to show about 40 locations when completed.

Making way for storm surge barriers, it’s our hope that Stuy Cove, a project of Solar One, will be able to return to its East River location, and continue supporting biodiversity and education in this community along the Atlantic Flyway, as currently planned.

Events!

Join us online on Wednesday, the 22nd of September, 2021 at 1:30 ET (6:30pm in the UK) with Scottish Green Map projects during Climate Fringe Week which is organised by Stop Climate Chaos Scotland to celebrate and support ways you can engage in climate activism. This event includes a pop in by the GIS Collective, rural and urban examples with Mr. Lovelock of Glasgow Eco Trust and Ms. Clinch of Dunoon's Tacit Design, along with global examples highlighting climate action that will inspire you before, during and after COP26. RSVP here

The next day, our director is presenting at the Service Design Scotland Distanced Gathering, an ongoing conversation hosted by Distanced Gathering that’s broken expectations of what can happen on Zoom. It’s at 11AM ET (4PM in the UK) on Thursday September 23. Delve in and register here.

Live event: Visualize Green Infrastructure! It’s a timely topic for the 10th LUNGS Harvest Arts Festival. Join Green Map’s walking discussion on Tuesday September 28 starting at 5PM ET at La Plaza Cultural, East 9th at Avenue C in the East Village. No need to RSVP. Check out the self-guided green infra tour map we created for Open House New York in 2020.

Supporting Changing Communities

We hope your community is moving to address all the issues and impacts coming to light now. With all the alarming news about climate change, we’re doing more, too. Soon, we’ll let you know about COP26-related events in Scotland and online latet this fall.

You can help us make the most of this opportunity to activate climate action through participatory mapping by pitching in by midnight on Friday during the 50% match on donations up to $50 in the Little by Little campaign! Thank you and be well, friends!

Links:

• More about our first climate and energy themed Green Map (2006)
• Learn more about social design, distanced by M. Press
• Thinking of mapping? Find out about OGM2, our open source tool

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!