Climate Action Conference – Acceleration Through Coordination (In person)

The next two years are a critical time for tackling climate change. New York’s groundbreaking Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is being translated into state policies and programs, channeling billions of dollars into local economies and creating an estimated 210,000 net new jobs by 2030. Capturing these opportunities is an invitation to local creativity. Sustainable Hudson Valley, working with dozens of organizational partners, has published the Regional Climate Action Road Map and Tool Kit to identify the kinds of major projects that will make a difference: building local support for renewable energy, creating clean transportation hubs, dismantling the throw-away economy by investing in recycling- and reuse-based businesses, supporting regenerative agriculture and natural climate solutions like capturing carbon in soil. New York is not only developing policies to encourage these innovations; the state has committed itself to investing 35 – 40% of all resources in communities that have historically borne undue environmental and climate risks and burdens.

Join Sustainable Hudson Valley and collaborators for a discussion on the actions that we all need to take.

Please Donate HERE .

Volunteer with the Kingston Fall Street Sweep (in person)

Starting point: 177 Broadway, Kingston, NY (corner of Broadway and McEntee)
Starting point coordinates (meeting location): 41.92269, -73.98827
Ending point: 65 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401
Ending point coordinates: 41.91955, -73.98466

Trash and debris in the Hudson River Estuary are a persistent problem. While various clean-up programs and techniques are essential, innovative solutions are necessary to make a lasting impact. Riverkeeper and the NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program (HEP) propose to engage stakeholders to develop a long-lasting, proactive solution to trash prevention and detection by addressing land-based sources of trash before it enters the waterway. Using HEP’s “Stopping Trash Where It Starts” protocols, Riverkeeper and HEP will conduct a fall “street sweep,” or litter survey, in Kingston, focusing on litter generation and dispersal methods along the right-of-way, including sidewalks, to create linkages to the issue of floatable material or marine debris in the Estuary.

REGISTER HERE

The survey locations will consist of a 400 meter stretch of road, on one side of the street, designated by cross streets for starting and ending points identified on Google Maps and coordinates. There will be a buffer distance of 300 meters from the nearest waterway. It is believed that at this distance, trash will have a higher probability of entering the waterway without incurring much obstruction.

Please email Katie Leung at kleung@riverkeeper.org if you have any questions. Katie will reach back out to you with more details after you sign up.

Your Role in New York’s Climate Action (virtual)

When New York’s draft scoping plan, written by the Climate Action Council, is finalized later this year, it will impact every New Yorker: our energy choices, the industries we work in, the communities we live in, the investments we make in affordable energy, and the ways we can protect ourselves and our neighborhoods against climate change. The River Newsroom climate reporter, Lissa Harris, will talk with people who have been following the state’s climate planning process closely about what the scoping plan means for all New Yorkers—and what action you can take.

Register here!

Meeting New York’s Ambitious Climate Goals: Conflict, Compromise, and NIMBY in Renewable Energy Siting (virtual)

10th Annual Woodstock Land Conservancy Film & Discussion Series

Hosted by Scenic Hudson. Register here!

In 2019, NYS passed the most ambitious, hopeful, and solution-oriented legislation in the country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2030, 70% of our electricity must come from renewables. In our part of the Hudson Valley, this means solar farms. Where will they go, who will make the decisions, and what will be the competing demands of agriculture, housing, tourism, and aesthetics?

We all want action on climate change. How do we balance people’s reservations against the pressing need to act now? Engage with short videos and live interviews plus Q&A with some of the climate leaders in the Hudson Valley, including Jen Metzger, former State Senator and current advisor to New Yorkers for Clean Power, and Audrey Friedrichsen, Land Use and Environmental Advocacy Attorney for Scenic Hudson.

Implementing New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (virtual)

The NYS Climate Action Council has released, for public comment, a much-awaited draft plan to implement New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), the most ambitious climate law in the country.  Attend this Zoom Q&A with Jen Metzger, who will give an overview of the plan and issues and recommendations that are important for communities to know about and weigh in on. She will also highlight actions that state and local governments need to begin taking now if New York is to reach its emissions targets.

This event is brought to you through the combined efforts of the New York State Climate Reality Project Coalition, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Riverkeeper, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, New Yorkers for Clean Power, and Scenic Hudson.

Register here!

Climate Justice Working Group (remote)

The Climate Justice Working Group is tasked with establishing criteria for identifying disadvantaged communities for the purposes of co-pollutant reductions, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, regulatory impact statements, and the allocation of investments pursuant to the CLCPA.

This informational meeting will not take any official action but include presentations on mapping analysis and will be conducted by teleconference. Members of the public are welcome to listen to the meeting via webcast.

Join in here!

Talk: Chantal Bilodeau, Co-founder of Climate Change Theater Action (remote)

Chantal Bilodeau, Co-Founder of Climate Change Theater Action will speak to the Hudson Valley and Catskills Climate Reality Chapter on Sunday, October 17th at 6pm. All are welcome.

To attend via Zoom, please email evemorgenstern@gmail.com

Chantal is a Canadian playwright now living in NYC who has been instrumental in getting the theater and educational communities, as well as audiences in the U.S. and abroad, to engage in climate action. Founded in 2015, Climate Change Theatre Action is a worldwide series of readings and performances of short climate change plays presented biennially to coincide with the United Nations COP meetings. Every other year, 50 professional playwrights, representing all inhabited continents as well as several cultures and Indigenous nations, are commissioned to write five-minute plays about an aspect of the climate crisis based on a prompt. This year’s prompt is The Green New Deal. The collection of plays is then available to producing collaborators interested in presenting an event during the project’s time window, typically in the fall. Events can be in-house readings, public performances, radio shows, podcasts, film adaptations and more. Chantal Bilodeau is also Founding Artistic Director of The Arctic Cycle and she is writing a series of plays that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states. In 2019, she was named one of “8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation” by Audubon Magazine.