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Late March 2020, I was two months into motherhood. New York City was a week and a half into COVID-19 lockdown and two months away from erupting into Black Lives Matter demonstrations. This was not the context I had imagined for this project, but it turned out to be immediately appropriate.
Read MoreNew York faces severe challenges posed by climate change including dangerous heat waves and flooding from sea-level rise. The New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), founded in 2009, is an independent group that assesses climate and environmental risks to NYC and recommends changes in an advisory report, much like the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) .
Read MoreThe last few decades have seen an exponential rise in the deployment of wind energy worldwide, mostly through the development of large-scale wind farms. Onshore wind is land-intensive: because wind energy is more dispersed than fossil fuel energy, it has significant spatial requirements, and with those requirements come an increasing number of conflicts—from the Americas to Asia, Africa, and Europe (Avila 2018). Two key features of these conflicts are pressures on land and patterns of uneven development, which create problems of space and justice (Avila 2018).
Read MoreTishman Environment and Design Center is proud to announce, with our partners, The Equitable and Just National Climate Forum, and the Center for American Progress, the release of a set of recommendations to the Biden-Harris administration for how they can effectively implement their commitment to environmental justice and the successful implementation of the Justice40 Initiative. The set of recommendations was developed with environmental justice (EJ) advocates, academic experts and national environmental groups.
Read MoreThe “Curriculum of the Anthropocene” event kicked off the Tishman Center’s 2021 Earth Week programming. We invited four New School faculty members to discuss how the New School’s curriculum could be altered to better prepare students to deal with the Anthropocene - a geological time period wherein human activity has undeniably affected Earth’s climate and environment.
Read MoreAudrea Lim, a journalist that focuses on climate and land issues, has curated an environmental anthology called “The World We Need”. Interestingly, Audrea made sure to bring in collaborators that don’t necessarily consider themselves “environmentalists”. Hear the stories from the collaborators themselves..
Read MoreThe 2021 Earth Week Keynote was presented by Drs. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, policy expert, and writer and Dr. Mia White, one of our faculty at The New School and a Tishman Center Affiliated faculty member. Her work has been featured The New York Times, Washington Post, and Scientific American. Most recently she has co-edited an anthology with Dr. Katherine K. Wilkinson, “All We Can Save”. We tuned with Dr. Johnson to see how the project came about.
Read MoreThe Tishman Center’s 2021 Earth Week is here! This year the theme is Transitions to Climate and Social Justice. Here’s a preview of the events.
Read MoreSince our last book list, the world has changed quite a bit. While we have many new challenges stemming from the pandemic and many other developments, a lot of the work that needed to be done last year has not gone away. During Earth Week 2021, we want to share some works to help understand the world we are living in and a more just world that we want to see. There are also some New School links to some of these books, showing the work that our community is doing towards justice and equity.
Read MoreIn Fall ‘19, faculty grants were awarded to support four projects related to the Tishman Center’s mission. One of those projects, “Developing Milano’s ‘Whole Earth’ Curriculum” was led by Leonardo E. Figueroa Helland (Milano/EPSM Faculty), and Mindy Fullillove (Milano/Urban Policy Faculty). As part of the project, a task force was created to investigate how the New School can reexamine its curriculum with a focus on climate justice, as well as to evaluate the school’s contribution to climate justice and its role in the greater community.
Read MoreWith the rise in violence and anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other places, we want our community members that are of Asian and Pacific Islander descent to know that we at the Tishman Center stand in solidarity with you and strongly condemn any attacks against people based on race and/or national origin. We, as a center, want to express our support and share resources that can help people understand the issues around Anti-Asian sentiment and ways to push back against it. In the face of white supremacy, the best strategy is work together and towards freedom and safety for us all. Please let us know if you would like to add to this list at tedc@newschool.edu
Read MoreOn March 26, 2021, Pratt and the New School hosted their first collaborated event which is part of the Communities Beyond Crisis speaker series. In this event titled “Participatory Action Research as a Transformative Pathway”, speaker Dayna Cunningham from MIT's CoLab answers important questions about why PAR is necessary for crisis management.
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 More“Frontline communities are the only ones who can get us out of this crisis.”
This past December, Angela Mahecha, Program Director of the Environmental Justice Fellowship Program, participated in TED Salon: Fairness and Our Future where she shared firmly and unapologetically that frontline communities, those most impacted by the climate crisis, are the only ones who can lead us towards a just future.
Read MoreAs Biden enters his presidency in the middle of a pandemic, many of his actions in the first two weeks have addressed COVID-19 and the economy. However, this has not stopped Biden from tackling the climate crisis. On his first day as President, Biden set a clear environmental priority by rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and cancelling the Keystone XL Pipeline. Moreover, he is prioritizing science in the political process and assembling a “Climate Cabinet”.
Most importantly, Biden recognizes that environmental justice is a vital part of the climate crisis. On his campaign trail, Biden proposed a 4-part Environmental Justice Plan. A week into his presidency, Biden released an Executive Order regarding the climate crisis, which included orders regarding environmental justice. When comparing the executive order against the plan, we found that Biden took action in each part of his environmental justice plan. The article compares how his actions have stacked up to his campaign promises so far.
Read MoreWe are in a pivotal moment where things once unimaginable are now undeniable. We can't continue to rely on technocratic approaches that have proven ineffective or that only make superficial change. To build a just world, we need people-centered strategies that challenge the political, social, and economic leaders and systems that produced decades of environmental racism and inaction on climate change. Environmental Justice Movement leaders, specifically the people who are closest to the dangers of climate change, should lead us in identifying solutions.
Read MoreThe Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School has compiled state-specific reports for Florida, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, the 5 states with the highest numbers of municipal solid waste incinerators. These waste incinerators have been known to emit mercury, lead, particulate matter 2.5 and 10, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, and carbon monoxide, all of which pose significant dangers to public health. Eighty-one percent of these trash incinerators are located within environmental justice communities.
Read MoreOur student awards from the spring were a great success and we were happy to fund fourteen great student projects. We are happy to announce that we have opened the application for the next semester’s student & faculty grants! If you are interested, please see details below:
Read MoreOur last (but certainly not least) projects from the 2020 Student awards! We would like to thank all the students for their hard work and are proud to see them making a positive difference in the world.
Read MoreAssistant Director Mike Harrington participated in a virtual roundtable that was co-sponsored with the Urban Systems Lab (USL). The panel featured USL Director Timon MacPhearson along with former Environmental Studies Chair Alan McGowan, Parsons faculty Ana Fisyak, Resilience quarterly contributor Jimmy Pan.
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