Alison: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. It is the 1st of December, which means it is World AIDS Day, and this year's theme is World AIDS Day 35: Remember and Commit. If you were looking for a place to reflect, there were folks gathering at the New York City AIDS Memorial at 7th Avenue and 11th Street, Greenwich Avenue area, right across from the former St. Vincent's Hospital, which was the epicenter of the epidemic here in New York City. I saw a lot of folks there this morning.

It is the 1st of December, which also means it is moving day. There are a lot of moving trucks out there today, sometimes double park, so drive carefully everyone, pack your patients, and easy on the horns. We know moving is stressful for everybody. On today's show, let's speak with the directors of the new documentary Bad Press, which covers the battle over an independent press within the Muscogee Tribal Nation. We'll talk about dating after 50 with author Francine Russo, in conjunction with our first ever All Of It Watch Party for a reality show.

Yes, we're going to discuss the cultural phenomenon, The Golden Bachelor, and yes, that explosive finale with super fan comedian Jordan Carlos. That is our plan. Let's get this started with a look at what the most critical environmental issues in our area are. The 2023 United Nations Climate Summit, otherwise known as COP28, kicked off yesterday in Dubai, where leaders from around the world gathered to discuss how to address the environmental threats to our planet. While climate change is a global problem that requires international cooperation, it's also very much a local problem.

Think about our flooded subways like during that intense storm, like the one back in late September which shut down the city. That was the same month we saw the hottest temperature for the year 2023 in New York City when it hit 93 degrees on September 7th. That's where organizations like the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance come in, led by my next guest, executive director, Eddie Bautista. The NYC-EJA has helped to organize campaigns addressing flood resiliency, waste disposable, renewable energy, and a whole lot more.

In the midst of these major global climate talks, we want to invite someone on to break things down locally. Eddie Bautista, welcome to All Of It.

Eddie: Good afternoon, Alison. Thanks for having me.

Alison: Listeners, what are the most pressing climate-related issues in your life? What would you make? What would make your neighborhood more environmentally just? Or if you're involved in any of the initiatives we're about to discuss with Eddie, feel free to join the conversation. Our phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433 WNYC. You can call in and join us on the air, or you can text to us if that's more convenient. Our social media is available to you as well @AllOfItWNYC. We're talking about local environmental issues to kick off this hour.

As I mentioned, Eddie, COP28, it's all about the global focus. We are going to be locally focused, your organization is locally focused, but I do want to ask, just as an umbrella question, what do you think is the overlap between these big, giant global issues and the things we focus on the loaf level. When it comes to mind, where's the intersection?

Eddie: Thanks, Alison. I think from our perspective, context matters, our coalition New York City Environmental Justice Alliance or NYC-EJA is a coalition of community-based organizations from the city's most environmentally overburdened communities, which means we're a Black and brown coalition. We're in the five boroughs, and one of the things from that perspective when you look at climate change and climate impacts, we've long known that even though climate change will impact everyone, its impacts will not be evenly felt.

In particular, when we extrapolate that context internationally, the way-- say Black and brown communities within the United States and in New York City tend to have the greatest environmental disparities. Similarly, on the global stage, we find that what's called the global south, which are essentially entire continents: South America, Africa, Asia. When we talk about the global south, we're talking about, again, the sectors of the globe that have contributed the least to climate change, but are disproportionately vulnerable to its impacts.

For example, one of the things that's been a long-standing deep concern of ours when it comes to the COP meetings is the ongoing failure of the global north, the wealthiest countries in the world to honor the commitments that they've said themselves and the world knows is needed, which is the subsidies and support for the global south to help them enact a just transition so that we're not worsening an already increasing hazardous moment for our planet.

Yes, so whether it's internationally or whether it's here in New York City, we have to continue to center the communities of color and low-income communities that are most disproportionately burdened because that's where the bulk of the deaths and the vulnerabilities lie right now.

Alison: Sometimes these problems can feel so big, too big, even maybe too far gone, and that big change needs to come from governments or major corporations to make any kind of difference. I want you to give a pep talk. I want you to give your speech, your pitch to someone who thinks that, "I can't do anything. I am ineffective in this level. This is too big."

Eddie: No, I can't tell you how much I can relate to that and our staff and our members. I think two things are important. I think there is an emphasis that often publicly at least tends to put climate action in individuals, makes it more of an individual responsibility or environmental issues. Obviously, there are all kinds of things we can be doing as individuals to reduce our carbon footprint and not contribute to the ongoing not just environmental, but climate crises that both locally and internationally we're facing.

Let's be honest, the real impacts, the real pivot when it comes to climate action and to really get serious about the climate change moment, not that's in the far distant future that we're currently living through. It's clear that it is the fossil fuel corporations, it's the big polluters, it is a global responsibility that local governments and national, and state governments all have to play a part in holding polluters responsible and working to enact what we've been calling for years, a just transition. I think everybody now recognizes that the transition from an extractive polluting energy sector to a clean renewable future is inevitable.

What's not inevitable is justice, and what's not inevitable is ensuring that, again, the most vulnerable are given the tools and support and resources they need. In many cases for solutions that we have developed on the ground ourselves in order to reduce the global impact. In terms of what individuals can do, yes, you can absolutely, like, use LED lighting, increase your recycling, increase your composting, but as great a contribution as those are even more importantly.

Contact your council person, your assembly person, your state senator, your congressperson, and trust me, there are a range of things that elected officials at all level of government need to be pursuing so that we can reduce the impacts that we now are living through. Individual action is fine, but what we really need is collective sectoral commitments to make sure that these transitions are happening justly.

Alison: We are talking about local environmental issues. My guess is Eddie Bautista, he's the executive director of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. Listeners, we're asking you, what are the most pressing climate-related issues in your life? What would make your neighborhood more environmentally just? Or if you're involved in any initiative that you want to shout out or discuss with Eddie or with the rest of us, please call in. Our number's 212-433-9692, 212-433--WNYC. You can also text us at that number.

We got a text, and then we'll go to some calls. The text says, I would love to see a ban on all disposable plastics, including all packaging that would do a great deal for climate change and also just cleanliness in our streets. Let's talk to Sharon, calling in from Queens. Hi, Sharon, thank you for calling in.

Sharon: Hi, we have a problem in Southeast Queens with tractor trailers parked on residential streets, and in turn, they block vision of people at intersections, and also they help people dump. We not only have them parking on regular streets, they just park, and then the next thing you know maybe six hours later, they're gone. There's a whole lot of garbage they leave. Unfortunately, I've talked to my sanitation department about it, and they're doing the best they can but it is ridiculous that they are allowed to park in the dark on a residential street with no flashes, no anything.

This has been a big problem, and I've talked to councilmen, I've talked to borough president. It seems like the police want to give them a pass because they're doing crime.

Alison: Sharon, I'm going to ask you to hold on for a second while I bring Eddie into this conversation. Eddie, I saw you nodding about tractor-trailers, and particularly idling is another issue with tractor-trailers, correct?

Eddie: Yes, absolutely. In particular, in Southeast Queens, there are multiple layers to this problem. The trouble with tractor-trailer trucks, is that they all burn diesel, and diesel emissions are clearly exacerbate asthma and other public health upper respiratory conditions. When you add on top of that, the fact that they shouldn't be idling, when you add on top of that, that certain neighborhoods have been zoned and planned in such a way where they encourage these kinds of clustered activities, you end up having communities like Southeast Queens, which is, again, a community of color and a community that, in fact, is not even a traditional low-income community.

Clearly, there are pockets of low-income folks in Southeast Queens, but it's also one of the largest communities of middle-class Black homeowners in the country. In fact, that's one of the things that we've told people over the years when it comes in this notion of environmental racism or environmental justice. We tell people, yes, low-income communities, which include low-income and certain working-class white communities, can also be victims of environmental injustice.

In fact, there have been studies that show that even middle-class African-American communities, oftentimes have greater environmental disparities than even lower-income white communities. The idea that there are certain communities that have a disproportionate impact, is in fact one of the reasons we founded our alliance in 1991. We were founded basically with two missions in mind. One is, can we identify what are the systems that are leading to these disparities? Can we figure out how to dismantle these systems that lead to African-American and Latino and Asian communities bearing a disproportionate brunt of these impacts?

For example, the campaign that we've been fighting for the longest, since our inception, has been the issue of waste transfer stations, and waste transfer stations are clustered in three communities. The largest cluster is in North Brooklyn, second largest in the South Bronx, third largest in Southeast Queens. When Sharon talks about garbage specifically, it's not just diesel trucks, it's specifically tractor-trailer trucks that are driving waste in and out of waste transfer stations that are located in Southeast Queens, which is why we've been fighting for years for waste equity law that we got passed a few years ago.

I can talk a little bit more about that. One of, I think, the learning lessons that we've groan to painfully understand, is that it's one thing to get a law passed. Mind you, one thing means years of campaigning and advocacy. It's another thing to make sure that the law gets implemented properly. That is the fight that we've been having for the last couple of years. Even when we pass visionary policies like waste equity, the commercial waste zones. Its impacts are only as effective as the implementation by the city. We are as frustrated as Sharon and other folks, at how the city's not implementing these laws effectively or expeditiously.

Alison: Let's talk to Reid calling in from Staten Island. Hi, Reid, thank you for calling All Of It.

Reid: Hi, Alison. Great feedback on again. I think this is my second or third week. I'm really upset about the elimination of community composting program. I'm in a graduate program in sustainability, and we've been talking about this a lot. 8.3 million pounds of garbage already are diverted per year through this program. Eric Adams is talking about eliminating it right when and after the city council has now pushed successfully to make composting like city directive. This program is all voluntary and people do this voluntarily and divert millions of pounds of garbage a year.

This is all going to be enslaved for removal for the budgets. This is now all this soil that we're not going to get out for NYC parks, street trees, and community gardens. I'm really upset about this program. I think that this should be the last thing that we're cutting in budget.

Alison: Reid, thank you so much. Eddie, I want to get you to weigh in on composting, and the idea that it's supposed to be universal. In theory this year, I know someone on our team said, lives in an area where it's supposed to happen, hadn't happened.

Eddie: Yes. No, Reid is right. In fact, it's the same vein as the previous call, of Sharon's issue, which again, solid waste, bad policy. How do we continue what is an unsustainable waste management system? How do we continue to drive reforms to reduce those impacts? Just to give you an example, it's not just like-- I don't want to be seen as being uniquely unfair to the Adams administration. This is a fight, again, for 30 years we've had with just about every mayor.

For example, about two years ago, during the de Blasio administration that there was another budget cut of composting that we had to fight with the council and finally get it restored. Up until and when we have citywide composting in place, and so long as we have to have these budget dance fights every year between a mayor and a council, we're not going to get to the scale of compost diversion that we know we need. About a third of the waste that New Yorkers generate is food waste.

It's waste that could be compostable, that could have not just an impact in terms of reducing the amount of waste that we manage in the city of New York, and to reduce the amount of waste, again, in those three communities of color I was mentioning that handle 75% of the city's waste. Let me just take a step back to give people a sense of scale. We generate somewhere in the order of 24,000 tons per day of waste. About half of that is residential waste, and the other half is commercial waste. One of the things that we got passed in 2018, was something called the Commercial Waste Zones Law.

The intent of that law was to insert real regulatory-- for the first time, in the commercial waste system, a mandate that the commercial waste haulers actually have to increase recycling, increase waste export that uses environmentally sound ways of exporting as opposed to these diesel trucks that Sharon was talking about earlier. Again, composting could be a big part of it because where is the majority of the food waste coming from?

Yes, Reid is correct that the composting, we and along with our allies, will be fighting like that to make sure that not only do we have these cuts restored in the future, but that we fully expand the program which we desperately need.

Alison: We're talking about local environmental issues with Eddie Bautista, executive director of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. We're also having this conversation with you. We've got a few calls lined up. Someone wants to talk a little bit about what's going on in the suburbs as well. We'll get into flood resiliency and maybe talk about the budget a little bit more. This is All Of It. This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The United Nations Climate Summit, otherwise known as COP28, kicked off in Dubai yesterday.

Of course, our world leaders discussing climate change. We're discussing it on a local level with you listeners as well as with Eddie Bautista. He's the executive director of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. Before we go to more calls, I did want to ask you about what you were watching most closely in the new budget proposals because the Adams administration, there were budget cuts announced that affected libraries, the NYPD, the education department, the composting programs, and so much more. What were you watching most closely, Eddie?

Eddie: Because we're citywide coalition that are rooted in New York City neighborhoods, unfortunately we don't have the luxury to just look at any one piece of the budget, so all of it's concerning to us. In the context of environment, let's hone in specifically on flooding, for example. We just had record rainfalls. You started the broadcast talking about it, Alison. In September, we saw the most rainfall that we've ever seen in New York City history. Again, we saw an administration that, for the second time this summer, had a significant historic climate change event, yet they failed to notify New Yorkers with any timeliness.

That said, we understand in the administration to their credit has talked about the need to dig in in terms of their flood-proof planning. The problem is that there've been a number of studies and reports that put out flood mitigation recommendations that were just not pursued by this administration. When the city council had a hearing in October about Hurricane Ophelia and its impacts in New York, they talked about the flood net program, and they talked about the flood sensors that they're going to deploy as part of the mitigation.

The problem was, at that hearing, they had just begun the flood net program, and the flood sensor deployment, again, is just begun, and it's all ahead of us. This is what they testified to in October, this month they cut it. That's part of the problem, is that we have a mayor administration that emphasizes public safety but somehow struggles to see public safety beyond street crime. What's more public safety than making sure that on a-- For example, at the beginning of the summer, on a day where we had the worst air quality in the world, there was no heads up from this mayor.

Again, with the flooding, we knew that it was coming, but there should have been at least one notice from the mayor the night before because nobody's going to listen or pay attention to their app, or they're not going to listen to some random commissioner, they will listen if the mayor gets on the news the night before and says, "Look, this is coming." Whether it's everything from as simple as just making an announcement to the yawning gap between the rhetoric of climate protection versus how you actually pay and operationalize it, that's a big growing gap in this administration, and it should be cause for concern for all New Yorkers.

Alison: Let's hear what's on some people's minds. Kathy has been holding, she's calling in from Nyack, New York. Kathy, thank you for holding. You're on the air now.

Kathy: Thank you. Yes. I'm in Rockland County, suburban area of New York City. The biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is transportation in this area and in probably many, many suburban areas. All the emphasis here is giving the subsidies and tax breaks to wealthy people to buy their electric cars. There'll be more cars on the road, so that's another huge issue. They may be selling their gas-guzzling cars to the poorer people and getting them off public transit, and the public transit up here is horrendous. We've really lost an opportunity here by giving all these subsidies for tax breaks.

Alison: Kathy, it sounds like you'd rather see it go towards public transportation. That's where you'd like to see money go?

Kathy: Absolutely. They are the environmental heroes that have been taking public transit, and we could be at least putting more money into getting electric buses, which we don't, and improving the system.

Alison: Kathy, thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk to Tess calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Tess, you're on the air.

Tess: Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'm calling about something that I've taken the initiative myself in collecting all the soft plastic, and that we all acquire so much of just when you trip to the grocery store, or shipping packages or whatever, and I ended up finding out because I was-- You see it all the time in recycling bins and it doesn't belong in there. In residential recycling bins, it clearly states it's supposed to be hard plastic and people-- they want to do something about it, but they don't know that there actually was a law passed.

I believe it's in all of New York State, that large stores, certain number of employees or whatever it is, are supposed to take back this soft plastic, and they're supposed to have in an obvious place, bins where you can deposit-- You can collect it in a bag and then bring it and drop it off. It's rare that they may have those bins available. I often feel like I'm just giving it to them for them to just put it in the garbage after I took the time to collect it. I don't think that this program is at all publicized. People don't even know that they can do this.

Most of this soft plastic trash just ends up blowing around on the street, or just mostly in garbage cans, and landfills, and just the fact that all this plastic is being created like virgin plastic in the first place. I think if people were more aware and the onus were on-- The onus is on the consumer, but if people were aware of this that they have to deal with this, I think there'd be more pressure on manufacturers to use less of it.

Alison: Tess, I'm going to dive in because our phone lines are pretty full. I really appreciate what you're doing and the point you're making. Let's talk to Lee, calling in from Queens. Lee has a question that Eddie, you might be able to answer. Hi Lee, you're on the air.

Lee: Thanks so much, Alison, and thanks Eddie for taking the call. Wanted to get a sense from you whether or not you thought that there's going to be any chance of the Ravenswood facility will come offline. Given there's been a lot of talk about offshore wind, there being difficulties with financing and things being no longer fiscally viable. Will we ever see Ravenswood come offline and be replaced by something that's a little bit more environmentally friendly, like offshore wind or solar?

Eddie: That's a great question. Can I jump in?

Alison: Yes, absolutely. Go for it, Eddie.

Eddie: Just thanks for the question, Lee. Just for folks who may not be aware, Ravenswood is the largest power plant in New York City, maybe the largest in the state now if you think of it. For those of you who may, you still may not know what I'm talking about, anybody drives on the FDR, when you look across and you see those enormous smokestacks in Queens that are red and white striped, that is the Ravenswood power plant. Not only is it the largest power plant in New York City, it's also immediately adjacent to Queensbridge Houses, which is the largest public housing project in the United States.

It's the home of Nas, and Nas if you're hearing this, we want you to come and join the campaign. We've been working for the last couple of years on something called Renewable Ravenswood, which the new owners of Ravenswood have been to their credit working with environmental groups and labor groups to do exactly that, to transition the Ravenswood facility from a fossil fuel burning entity to one that's running on renewable I'm sorry-- a facility that relies on clean renewable energy, like offshore wind and the like.

There is a bill called the Just Energy Transition Act, or JETA, that we have been supporting along with our colleagues in New York Renews. It is a mandate for the state if the bill passes, that would mandate that a study be done looking at all the power plants that could potentially retire as a result of another law that we got passed in 2019 called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Again, for folks who don't know, it's the New York State Climate Law. It's the most ambitious climate law among the 50 states and served as an inspiration to the Biden administration for their climate policies.

We saw when we passed that, that there will be opportunities. Part of that law calls for by 2040, all of our energy-generating systems in New York State needs to be emissions-free. We believe that that mandate, coupled with this JETA bill, which would mandate that a study looking at how to retire those power plants that rely on fossil fuel by 2040, as well as a procurement where the State of New York would actually have to help pay for the deployment of those new clean renewable energy systems.

We believe that that is the path to get the Ravenwood facility fully transitioned. For folks who want to know more about that, just contact info@nyc-eja.org and we will plug you into the Renewable Ravenswood fight. It's a good one.

Alison: Before I let you go, I feel like I need to ask one question at least about heat. Anybody who's here this summer knows that heat has a major impact on quality of life and also on safety and health. What is a heat issue that you're focused on? Where do you want to see change?

Eddie: Extreme heat is the most deadly of all the climate change impacts. If you add up all the deaths that happen as a result of storm surges, flooding, wildfires, and the rest, more people die of extreme heat. Over 370 New Yorkers in this city die every heat from exposure to extreme heat. A lot of those sometimes elderly folks and folks who have health conditions, but the extreme heat would be the trigger that actually contributes to their death.

Not only are we losing 370 New Yorkers every year right now to heat, but by the 2050s, the Panel on Climate Change predicts that the number of 90-degree days in New York City is expected to double or triple, and the number of heat waves are expected to triple or quadruple. We are in for a really dangerous period of time in the coming decades, and the 2050s may sound like a long way off. It really isn't. There is a range of extreme heat legislative and policy recommendations that we've been pursuing to reduce--

Again, the disparities for Black and brown New Yorkers are even higher when it comes to extreme heat, and all the climate change impacts. Extreme heat is real. It's something that both the city and the state need to do a lot more. For example, one of the things we just got passed a couple of months ago with our partners in Forest for All was the city council mandate that they plan for including 30% tree canopy coverage throughout the city, which would work wonders in reducing, again, the heat impacts that--

There's a ton of other things like that, but I'll stop there because I know we're running out of time, but thank you, Alison.

Alison: Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. Thank you so much for fielding listeners' calls and sharing the work you do.

Eddie: My pleasure. Thank you, Alison.

 

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