We interviewed Aja Two Crows from the New York Climate Exchange. She spoke about how she was very interested in the arts and culture, K-12 education, community-based research, citizen science, and micro-grants programs. She and her coworkers essentially develop programming for the new NYC Climate Exchange trying to push forward new plans and ideas.

She also talked about how we should accelerate projects that already exist and uplift other multidisciplinary issues. In other words, thinking about it from many perspectives. This can include buildings, food, air, building decarbonization, and many more. The idea of having many partners also came up a lot, regarding their relationships with over 12 universities, 3 corporations, and 33 community partners. They are there to help forge connections between them to help the issue at large. For example, they could pull together a bunch of scientists to discuss with writers about the impacts of climate change to attempt to get the word out.

This all was very amazing to me as the entire organization is fairly new to the world. It had only been founded in April of 2023 and Aja has been there for 8 months. To already have this much work completed and in place is quite an achievement. It is good to know that whilst there is so much to feel badly about regarding climate change there are also so many people and organizations that support this effort.

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We interviewed Sasha Abraham from the MOCEJ. She spoke about how important the impact that communities have on the climate change crisis. She echoed a lot of what we had heard regarding the fact that climate change does not impact all people equally. She talked about how important it was to recognize that people who have more money and resources are going to have massive advantages in the future.

She continued to discuss the possible solutions to climate change more specifically in the NYC environment. This included solar power, green infrastructure, and natural resources. It was quite helpful to hear this because it really backs up what we had been talking about in our research. Since we had not previously spoken about climate with a government agency it was very interesting to hear their perspective.

Despite this, the interview largely remained reminiscent of many other things we had heard from our interviewees. She was very emphatic and passionate about her topic and seemed to want to get the word out not just to adults but also to kids like us.

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My partner Harvey and I interviewed the Billion Oyster Project and learned about what they do to make New York more sustainable to climate change. They hope to build a stronger connection with New Yorkers and their environment and have a bigger impact on what is going on.

They hope to plant 1 billion oysters in New York Harbor by 2035. By planting the oysters it can naturally strengthen the shorelines of New York to minimize the damage caused by high wave energy brought by large storms. Putting the oysters in the water can improve water quality, boost biodiversity, and protect the shorelines from erosion and storm surges. This fieldwork really showed us how there are so many different ways to combat climate change.

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My partner Harvey and I spoke with Keanu Arpels-Josiah, a former LREI student and climate activist who works for Fridays for Future. He told us how important it is to speak out about climate change and to push for a better future. He said how important it is to find common ground with the people who don’t believe in the climate crisis and call it a hoax.

He spoke strongly about how there is still hope for the future. He said that I lot of people tried to ignore climate change. Keanu said that this is the worst thing that could be done as well as letting the people who don’t believe that climate change is real have a voice in what is best for the planet that we live on. The most important thing that we can do is to get outside and have our voice heard and speak out on what we to do to help our planet.

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We visited the museum of New York City and learned about various activists who fought for different causes and rights. When I looked at the way others had persevered through hard times, I made a strong connection with the current climate change crisis. I thought about how despite the fact so many people had struggled with their activism, they were able to push through and ensure that their cause was fought for.

When you put this into the context of climate change it has a different type of feeling simply because disability rights affect an enormous amount of people but they don’t quite encompass the entire world as climate change does. However, that does not eliminate the comparison, you can still think of climate change in a similar way that you would women’s rights because they both are instances of people fighting for something that they believe in. This is not to dismiss the weight and importance of these issues but simply to put this into perspective. If you combine every civil rights movement ever, they still affect less people than climate change.

Something about women’s rights particularly struck me because the way that so many people can come together as one to fight for a cause is truly incredible. Despite the comments I have made above, women do truly encompass a lot of the world and are an irreplaceable part of the human race. To be able to all agree on a set of ideals is really impressive. This serves to me as an example of although we can’t all have the same ideals when it comes to climate change, there is surely some middle ground we can reach when it comes to this issue.

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We talked to the Billion Oyster Project about their work to help the climate change crisis. The Billion Oyster Project is an organization that is committed to restoring reefs into New York City waters in conjunction with many members of the community and almost 1 million people to restore over 1 billion oysters to NYC by 2035. They are hoping to build more connections between the community and the environment to have a greater impact on the ecosystem we are a part of.

They talk about how although all climate change solutions are important and they can make a big difference, they try to build more long lasting connections that will affect the crisis long term. With oysters, they are attempting to restore and protect some of the shorelines that have been destroyed by high wave energy and winds that large storms bring. They not only improve water quality, but they also boost biodiversity and protect shorelines from erosion. In addition to this, their shell recycling program has successfully diverted over 2.4 million pounds of shell from going to the landfill, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

They finished off by talking about how climate change will absolutely change our lives in the future, but also the near future. They said that we have already seen the worst increase in natural disasters in New York City, such as unprecedented wildfires and incredible superstorms and they have definitely affected our city.

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My partner Harvey and I visited Washington Square Park and asked people the questions, do you believe climate change is real, and do you think it will affect New York. We got around seven responses that said climate change was definitely real and it will affect New York. Two people although, believed that climate change was not real and said that the world was run on capitalism and not science.

This was interesting because even though we had heard from so many people that climate change was real, it was surprising to listen to people who believed that it was not. Even though some people did not think that climate change was real, it was still important to listen to a different perspective than what we had heard earlier.

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Harvey
Before the Flood

We watched a documentary called Before the Flood directed by Fisher Stevens and Starring Leonardo DiCaprio which talks you through the climate change crisis in an interesting and entertaining way. This documentary talks you through the effects and solutions of the climate change crisis. He travels around the world, talking to people from the Great Canadian Oil Sands, the Arctic Circle, Florida, China, and many others.

He explores the effects of climate change hands on, and discusses the topic with many local residents and business owners who call that place home. This gives the documentary a very personal and open perspective, allowing you to not only see the effects but actually experience what it is like to live there. The visuals are incredible to view, simply because it is so shocking to see some of the results that take place. For example, seeing a 30 foot cord of wire, that used to be under ice, all laid out is quite extraordinary. From that, to the scene of the barron oil sands and destroyed landscapes one compared to Mordor from Lord of The Rings, puts an incredibly strong view in your mind of where we are going.

However, later in the documentary, he visits Elon Musk and his Tesla Gigafactory, where they talk about the possibility of major solutions to climate change. He follows this with a visit to the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who discusses the Paris Climate Agreement, and how that can show the major initiatives shown by the U.S. and China are largely positive. This shows how there are solutions out there and people do care a lot about this issue.

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We interviewed people in Washington Square Park asking them the question of whether or not they think climate change is real and if so, do you think it’ll affect New York? We got about seven responses with the majority thinking that climate change is real and it will definitely affect New York whereas we had two people in the minority who believed that climate change was not something that humans could create and that the world was run by capitalism not science

We found this quite interesting because although we have heard from many people that climate change denial is fairly common to find people albeit in a small group that actually believed that it was not real, quite surprising. This let us to believe that despite the fact we found people who did not believe in climate change, we were happy to find that the majority still believed that it exists

However, despite the fact that we are disappointed that some people believe that climate change does not exist some calling it a hoax it is important that we are able to find people with a different perspective, and it was quite enlightening to see that that perspective does exist, and you can find it in the real world in abundance.

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Eliza believes that Climate Change can affect New Yorkers. An example of this is the flooding in Jamcia Bay. She talked about a way that houses become inhabitable is because of there not being enough green infrastructure. Not having enough green infrastructure can cause places to heat up. She mentioned that we can stop the spread by adding green to neighborhoods. She talked about how most neighborhoods that suffer from flooding are low-income areas.

We asked if she tries to stop Climate change, and Eliza said she does what she can, like using energy-efficient cars. She mentioned that not only one person can stop climate change and that we all must do our part. She added that we can help this electing people that want to stop climate problem.

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Eliza thinks that New York will change a lot due to the climate change crisis. Furthermore, Eliza also believes that climate change will affect a lot of New Yorkers’ lives for several reasons. These reasons include flooding in areas around Jamacia Bay and lower Manhattan. However, she also mentions that many projects are going on to help combat climate change issues such as green infrastructure, and how that can really help the entire environment.

She mentions the heat island effect and the thinking that depending on the amount of tree cover in a certain area, affects the temperature and living conditions of the inhabitants. She furthers this point by saying that these areas are almost always more low-income areas and that that is something to look into. She then again uses the example of Jamacia Bay to compare that level of income there, to areas that are much less flood-prone. She then mentions the east-river park rising to accommodate sea level rise.

When we asked her if she was making a difference in the climate change crisis, she replied that she does things like composting and using energy-efficient cars. However, she also mentions that although she makes her efforts, only her is not enough and it is more important to make sure that the people that we are electing into office are more trustowthy on this issue.

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