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After two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, how has our conception of public space changed? Over the past two years, the citizens of metropolitan cities have minimized the use of vehicles in the streets due to the restrictions for travel and ‘stay home’ mandates. With the absence of traffic jams and parked cars, the citizens of New York occupied the streets in their own way.
Read MoreIn celebration of Women’s History Month and as we approach the one year anniversary of a worldwide pandemic, we must acknowledge the extra labor that women have contributed during COVID-19 and the widening gender gap caused by the pandemic.
Read MoreFor the fourth part of the Tishman Center’s video interview series, we spoke to Dr. Nicky Sheats, director of the Center for the Urban Environment of the John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy at Thomas Edison State University and a key member of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (NJEJA). He is also a lawyer and longtime advocate for environmental justice.
Read MoreOur third conversation in the interview series was with Susan Blaustein, the Executive Director of WomenStrong International, a community of organizations across the globe that focuses empowering women and girls. We spoke with Susan about how climate impacts affect women, inequalities that have stemmed from COVID-19 among other things. We hope you all enjoy this episode and please share your feedback with us.
Read MoreFor the second part of the Tishman Center’s video interview series, we would like to highlight Maria Lopez-Nuñez. As the Deputy Director of Organizing and Advocacy at the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC) in Newark, NJ, Maria is an environmental justice activist deeply rooted in the Ironbound community.
Read MoreWe want to highlight the work of those looking to create positive change in the environmental and climate justice spaces and to share how we can support and elevate them; therefore we will be sharing their stories in the form of short interviews. Our first featured interview is with Leslie Velasquez, the Environmental Justice Program Coordinator at El Puente, a Brooklyn-based social justice and arts non-profit.
Read MoreEarlier this month, Ana Baptista, Director of the Tishman Center and Chair of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management program, gave a Congressional briefing in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on environmental justice communities.
Read MoreApril is normally the busiest month for the Tishman Center, as the variety of programming focused on Earth Day that we have spent several months developing comes to life on campus. This year, however, in light of COVID-19, the Tishman Center, along with the rest of the world, had to rapidly readjust and find ways to transition towards a virtual format to ensure that we keep our community safe but still get a chance to connect.
Read MoreLIC Relief was founded March 13, 2020 by Kelly Craig and Patrick Thompson. They called upon local civic, religious and business organizations to work together to alleviate food insecurity needs in Western Queens neighborhoods and surrounding areas due to the Covid-19 crisis. Our model is two-pronged, meal distribution in partnership with local restaurants and operating a dry goods food collection site.
Read MoreThe Tishman Center has had to cancel our extensive Earth Month programming in light of the social distancing measures and our responsibility to provide spaces for our community. However, we believe it is crucial to still find creative ways of coming together and sharing perspectives around the moment in time we find ourselves in and how it relates to the underlying injustices that have threatened vulnerable communities before the pandemic and now becoming a threat multiplier.
Read MoreWhile we live in an era that will most likely be shaped by the climate crisis, right now the focus is on coronavirus, which has turned the world into a very different place in a very short time. However, climate change is not sitting down and waiting patiently until we’re done dealing with the coronavirus. It continues to be an existential threat to humanity, even if short-term decrease in activity may slow it down. In a way, it is accompanying the coronavirus like a shadow, challenging us to consider it in every step of the way. The challenge, as we will see, is not only to remind ourselves that the climate crisis is here, even if we deal with another emergency, but also to learn the lessons from the coronavirus and figure out how to apply them to the fight against climate change.
Read MoreIn light of the novel coronoavirus and adhering to The New School’s response, The Tishman Center will be postponing, altering or cancelling a number of our events in April, including our Earth Week programming. We will provide updates about what we will have in lieu of our regular programming, but we feel that it is in the best interest of everyone to avoid hosting events with large groups of people until it is safe to do so. In the words of the Climate Justice Alliance, “ [The novel] Coronavirus is here and is a litmus test for how the climate crisis will destabilize markets, open opportunity for disaster capitalism, disrupt global supply chains, and expose inadequate or failing systems like our healthcare system.”
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