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:
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!
Happy Climate Action Week! Your donations of up to $100 are 100% matched all week, through Friday, April 24th at midnight ET - please pitch in! Help us collect the full $2,000 match offered by GlobalGiving.
Your support has been critical to our work in NYC:
Yesterday, we held an online demo of our new mapping platform, OGM2, this time with participants from Afghanistan, Canada, Scotland, South Africa, Arizona, New York and Washington (find links these demos to GreenMap.org/stories/ogm2, where the list of platform features and presentations is growing). See OGM2 at new.OpenGreenMap.org, and consider making your own local Green Map.
Then, it was time for Green Map NYC to head to a spring gathering in East River Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. We partnered with LES Breathe, a community group addressing the environmental, health and climate impacts of the ESCR project as currently designed. Many are concerned about upcoming years of construction, and the lack of transparency and review of this monolithic razing and raising of our largest park. Using OGM2's new Campaign feature at Saturday’s event, we provided an opportunity to engage people in sharing their story on the Monitoring East River Park Green Map. Explore it at bit.ly/erpmap.
A part of East River Park Action, LES Breathe co-hosted an Open Data Week panel with Beta NYC and the Borough President’s office in March and is developing community partnerships to activate mutual aid responsiveness. This work ties in with Green Map NYC’s involvement with street tree stewardship, community gardening and other neighborhood climate health projects. We’re also part of the Dutch Kills Loop, an infrastructure reuse project in Long Island City, the Loisaida Open Streets Community Coalition and more, all described in the new project document posted on our GlobalGiving profile.
It’s been a year like no other, and we are delighted to continually contribute to community mapping, across the board. Last week, our director had the honor of being the first speaker in the International Society of Participatory Mapping’s new Storylines series (recording is here) Follow @ISPMapping on Twitter for updates on the series.
With your help, we’re having an amazing spring, with locally led Green Map projects popping up all over the world. Our local work benefits New York City and the global Green Map network. This week, please pitch in - your donations of up to $100 are 100% matched now, through Friday at GlobalGiving - thank you so very much!
Our best wishes to all this Earth Week - Climate Action Week!
We are having an amazing year, thanks to you. Now, we invite you to three events:
The Roots of our Practice:
Green Map stories will be shared in this exciting International Society for Participatory Mapping discussion providing a deep dive with a look ahead on Tuesday, April 13th, 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT (everytimezone). Please register here.
OGM2 Demo-Discussion:
Join us and explore our second mapping platform, Open Green Map 2 with its open source developers, the GIS Collective - bring your questions and suggestions! Register at bit.ly/ogm2421 for this Saturday, April 17, 2021, 10:00 AM ET (every time zone) session. See past sessions at GreenMap.org/stories/ogm2
Join us in the Park:
April 17th is a busy day! Join us in NYC’s East River Park, noon-3 to see our new “Campaign” app at work at a student-organized all-day community celebration with activities centered around the park’s historic Fireboat House (all the way east, near Delancey Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan). Drop by, all are welcome! More info here.
Our local Climate Health projects, including Green Maps, are the subject of a new ‘project document’ on our GlobalGiving profile (or view here). We’re gearing up for the Climate Action Campaign - April 19th to 24th - when your support is 100% matched up to $100 for climate projects!
East River Park has been the scene of many Green Map events over the years. Now, our director has been working on Air Quality issues surrounding the massive East Side Coastal Resilience project with LES Breathe. She joined the Manhattan Borough President’s office, Beta NYC and groups working in parallel for Open Data Day - see EastRiverParkAction.org/open-air-quality. And yes, there is a new Green Map underway, to be revealed soon!
We also hosted an Open Green Map event for Open Data Day - see the report here. Thanks to the maker of the FEEDJeffCo Green Map, there's a a handy resource there for getting a new project organized.
Our new Recovery Icons have sparked a unique remote learning opportunity. Led by Dr. Green, the Pace School of Management in lower Manhattan has utilized our tools for mapping tourism resources for years. Pivoting to address the pandemic, they created a global Google Earth Global Recovery Map, using our 2020 new set of icons in several countries! See the introduction and explore this map here. 150 more sites will be added this Spring, too!
We hope you can join one of our events - and there is more to come during Climate Week! Be well, everyone!
This week, GlobalGiving is incentivizing new recurring donations! If you start yours before midnight this Friday, after the 4th month, Green Map will receive 200% of your first donation, boosting the value of your gift significantly. Recurring gifts help us plan, too! Our thanks to the seven recurring donors already helping us on this platform! You can support our global program or our local NYC climate action work!
Why give to Green Map? In addition to map making, we are partnering on several local placemaking projects in NYC that address climate head on:
Close to our Lower East Side office, there’s a popular little park with a handsome former community recreation building that needs revitalization to reopen to the public. Green Map has been on the Stanton Building Task Force since 2012, along with the Sara D Roosevelt Park Coalition, University Settlement, FAB-NYC and Pratt Institute. This year, we celebrated the opening of its new public restrooms! This month, we hosted a public presentation by Pratt’s interior design students who reimagined the building from different perspectives, highlighting repair, food security, energy, free expression, teen engagement and more, as you can see at instagram.com/stanton_reimagined/. Will 2021 be the year the Stanton Building is returned to community use? Watch for updates in the year ahead and at facebook.com/StantonBldg.
The Dutch Kills Loop is moving forward, too. Since 2015, Green Map has been part of the team steering this infrastructure-reuse project that incorporates bio-active innovation - from composting and mycoremediation - and plans to clean stormwater, generate energy and much more along a disused rail line and two-mile loop of open space and restoration landscapes. Check out this Long Island City long-term project at DutchKillsLoop.org and hopefully, soon, you will be able to come walk the Loop in person!
Green Map NYC is also taking part in Open Streets - this is a Covid-pivot that addresses our village’s too-narrow sidewalks and encourages on the street ‘distanced strolling’ and easy-going relaxation. These traffic-calming projects are all over NYC, and ours is the first managed by community members! Green Map is part of the team on Avenue B in the East Village, as seen at twitter.com/Loisaida_OSCC.
Other climate action projects are in gardens, on bikes, at the riverside - more to come in a future newsletter, Around the world, many Green Map projects are also active in a range of on-the-ground projects supporting the regeneration of local nature and sustainable living.
Here’s some good news: New York became the first state to have their retirement fund divest from oil and gas - this is $226 Billion moving over to the green side!
Wishing you all the best as the Winter Solstice approaches - we hope you will be in good health as you celebrate the return of the light and look ahead a positive year for climate progress, locally and globally!
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