Toward a Green, Sustainable Syracuse

Ollie Clubb

In thinking about and planning for our own community's future - indeed,

Bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways are among the approaches used by other cities to build community and create sustainability. Photo:[bicycling.511.org]

for our planet's very future - one fact overshadows all others: global warming. The world's plight was highlighted in late January by a recent scientific study of climate change. The report concluded that global warming must be halted within ten years to avert the 2º centigrade temperature rise likely to precipitate an irreversible climate catastrophe. That would occur when the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has already reached 379 parts per million, reaches 400 parts per million.

The danger - and what society must do to meet it - was noted as early as December 1988 when Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, in her annual Christmas speech, warned her people that they had to change their ways. "At Christmas," she said, "the joyous anniversary of Jesus' birth, light breaks through in a world darkened by man's egotism and lust for domination over his fellow man and nature. We feel that darkness today, in all its frightening gloom, as the future of creation itself is at stake." It was high time, Beatrix said, that "the position was reviewed and our way of life adjusted accordingly."

Writing in Outside magazine (June 2003), Florence Williams noted that Beatrix was calling for "an environmental revolution on a scale that no other nation had ever attempted." In response, the Dutch parliament adopted a 25-year National Environmental Policy Plan to create a society of "negligible risk" for humans and ecosystems. The Dutch have been meeting the plan's ambitious goals while simultaneously creating the fastest growing economy in Europe.

Obviously, nothing like that is to be expected from the Bush administration. It's in bed with the fossil fuel industries, fi ghting tooth-and-nail against any international agreements or federal action to reduce the greenhouse gases produced by burning oil and coal. Perhaps blindly, the Bush administration is dragging our own country and the rest of the world toward an ecological precipice.

The good news is that "green urbanism" is thriving in many northern European cities. They have been fostering sustainable construction practices, practicing large scale energy conservation, switching to renewable sources of energy, creating extensive car-free zones, and creating heavily used transit and bike transportation systems to sup-plant car-oriented urban designs. (See Timothy Beatley, Green Urbanism; also, Jay Walljasper, "Learning from Europe: A Blueprint for Building Livable Towns and Cities," E Magazine, March/April 2005)

The Netherlands has created what urbanism writer Jay Walljasper calls a transportation network "beyond the wildest dreams of commuters, environmentalists and city lovers across America. In Amsterdam, for instance, only 20% of people's trips around the city are in a car; 36% are on foot, another 31% on bikes, and 11% on transit."

Back in 1997, the Guardian Weekly, noting that 124,000 cyclists ride into its downtown every day, reported that, "Copenhagen is probably the greenest capital city in the world - likely to be the only city to meet the United Nations' latest target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Its clean air, low number of cars and efficient public transport system put most other cities to shame."

Increasingly, state and municipal governments in the US have been addressing the threat of global warming; and many cities have been redesigning themselves along "green" European lines. Portland, Oregon exemplifies this trend. Through the efforts of citizen activists allied with far-sighted political leaders, Portland has reinvented itself as a "green" city where, as Mayor Vera Katz says, "pedestrians come first, public transit [and bike transportation] second, and cars third." Moreover, Portland was the first US city to join the international "Cities for Climate Protection Campaign" (1993). As Mayor Katz put it, "Portland and cities throughout the world are responsible for creating a sustainable future for our children…. We cannot wait for federal action."

Jay Walljasper commented: "Town planners, city officials, environmentalists, and tourists from all over the country are drawn to Portland.…It's doing something more creative and sustainable than urban-planning-as-usual. Instead of accepting ever-escalating levels of traffic, air pollution, sprawl and inner-city decay, Portland has made a commitment to public transit, environmental quality, compact development, and the revitalization of poor neighborhoods. It offers a different vision of what cities could look like in the 21st century." (Yes, Summer 1999) People and businesses have been fiocking to Portland because of its beauty and livability.

Portland isn't the only US city thinking and planning "green." "Sustainable Seattle" has long been following green planning guidelines. Davis, California has no school buses; its children all walk or ride bikes to school on its superb system of bike-pedestrian pathways. Madison, Wisconsin, with a bikes- and buses-only main drag, has three bicycles for every two cars - and a beautiful, pedestrian-friendly downtown booming with new residential construction. For the past decade, Mayor Richard Daley, Jr. has been working to make Chicago "the greenest city in America." Chicago's city hall even has a "green roof" consisting of vegetation that absorbs rain while insulating in the winter and cooling the building in the summer. Chicago also has the nation's first hydrogen-powered buses on its streets. Minneapolis, Minnesota and Boulder, Colorado also have much to offer as models for the kind of "green city" Syracuse could become.

Already there are "green" stirrings here. The City of Syracuse, having

Windmills are a promising source of renewable energy. While these firm have initiated a are in Hawaii, you can find them nearby in Fenner with more planned"Greening USA" project for the region. Photo: [www.tropicdiver.com]

With two wind farms already and a much larger one planned for the Tug Hill Plateau, Upstate New York is slated to become the northeast's wind-power capital. Bristol-Myers Squibb, an environmental pariah not long ago, has so transformed its operations that it is now ranked among the world's top 100 corporations for environmental excellence.

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo has become an outstanding model for "green" building methods. The Zoo has created a new addition constructed entirely with natural, nontoxic materials. Through extensive use of daylighting, insulation, and innovative heating, it has added 13,000 feet of floor space with no increase in energy consumption.

Focus Greater Syracuse promotes sustainability as a theme, "stirring the pot" with Friday-morn-ing seminars and their annual, heavily attended luncheon scheduled for April 15. Architects at the Ashley-McGraw firm have initiated a "Greening USA" project to establish green rating criteria for communities analogous to those created for buildings.

Central New York's academic institutions are also launching sustainability initiatives. SUNY-ESF is collaborating with Bristol-Myers Squibb in planning for a bio-mass facility to provide both institutions with renewable energy; and ESF has initiated a "green campus" program. Le Moyne College has created a geo-thermal facility to provide energy for one of its dormitories. Syracuse University is constructing a "Center of Excellence for Environmental Systems" devoted to indoor air quality research and technology; and its new School of Management is being designed by the architect who designed the world's first "green" skyscraper. Chancellor Nancy Cantor has affirmed SU's commitment to help make Syracuse a "world leader" in environmental systems.

Our community is also seeing the nation's first Land Rights Action by a Native American nation focused on environmental cleanup (see Supporting Onondaga Land Rights).

There is a growing consciousness here that we have to move toward sustainability for both human civilization and the natural world to survive. But so far these have been scattered efforts. There is no coherent, unifying "green city" vision guiding urban planning as in other US and European cities - and no serious attempt thus far to halt urban sprawl or, in the interest of environmental quality and livability, move away from a car-dominated urban transportation system and landscape.

To learn more or become involved in creating a sustainable Syracuse, please contact: Sam Gordon at 558-9750; Stacey Smith at 471-5068; or Ollie Clubb at 479-5983.

Ollie is a peace and environmental activist in Syracuse.