4/11/08-Plan NYC (2030) Sustainability Youth Forum @ Teachers College

On Friday I went to the Learn green NYC Youth Forum at Columbia Teachers college.  It was really really interesting.  It started with a representative from mayor Bloomberg’s office talking to us about the mayors sustainability plan called Plan NYC 2030.  He explained that by 2030, NYC will produce 30% less greenhouse emissions.  Then he explained that by 2030 there will be 1 million more new yorkers than there are now and that Plan NYC aims to deal with the effects and how best to be prepared for them.  Four girls from Parsons had made a short film about personal space and how population growth will affect that.  Then everyone broke into groups on the floor with each group having a great big piece of paper and lots of markers and pens.  We were then given 4 questions and they set it up so that we would all rotate into all the different groups.  Basically the questions were about ideas for sustainability for NYC.  There were kids and adults and everyone brainstormed together.  Everyone wrote or drew their ideas onto the big pieces of papers.  There were many representatives from many schools, but none had as many representatives as LREI.  The representatives were Me, Nick O’Han, Kai, Celi, and Gabe.  I met some cool people and learned many good ideas on how to be more sustainable.  It was a great experience and by the way, they had amazing organic ginger cookies.