Kids call for action on climate change
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Young people across Manhattan skipped class
last Friday to protest inaction on a critical issue
facing their generation — climate change.
“We only have 11-and-a-half years until we start seeing
some serious changes that we can’t do anything
about,” warned Anna Simmons,16, from Soho.
Simmons, like the hundreds of other young people
who marched to the American Museum of Natural
History, wanted adults to “stop acting like children.”
They called for the passage of legislation like Congressmember
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal
to mitigate the devastating effects of the earth’s rising
temperature.
The protest was truly part of a global effort since children
in 400 other cities across the nation and in more
than 100 countries protested in hopes that their elders
would listen.
Humanity has less than a dozen years to modify the
global energy infrastructure to limit global warming to
moderate levels — or an annual increase of just 2.7 degrees
Fahrenheit — according to a United Nations report
released in October 2018.
The report lists devastating droughts, rising sea levels
and damaging storms as just some of the negative
consequences of failing to keep the earth’s temperature
in check.
It was seeing the number 12 — as in, less than 12
years till major climate change kicks in — in a CNN
headline on his cell phone that
shocked 16-year-old Spencer Berg
into action.
“That’s when I realized how
screwed we are,” said Berg,
who was skeptical until he
read the U.N. report himself.
“I thought climate
change was far away — and
then just seeing the number…
that’s when I realized
I had to do something and I
have to do it now.”
The day began at 9:30
a.m. outside the United Nations,
where fellow New
York City climate strikers
have silently protested every
Friday since December.
Young people, ranging
from toddlers to teenagers,
also gathered outside City
Hall. They waved signs and passed around microphones
to vent their frustrations.
“We deserve a future!” they chanted, in hopes that
some elected offi cial would listen.
The young demonstrators then traveled Uptown to
Columbus Circle, where dozens of teens climbed onto
the statue of Christopher Columbus while toting megaphones
and signs.
PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
The young protesters started out at City Hall.
Afterward, the young climate activists marched even
farther Uptown to the American Museum
of Natural History, where they
staged a die-in.
The crowd of young protesters
was diverse, but they all
shared the belief that they
have the power to enact
change.
Many attributed their conviction
to the efforts of Greta
Thunberg, the 16-year-old
Swedish girl who, in August
2018, started protesting outside
the Swedish Parliament,
calling for action against climate
change.
Thunberg started the fi rst
school strike and inspired
all the climate strikes that
occurred last Friday.
“The kids really understand
the power of one,” said
Yasmeen Hoosenally, as her son Indigo, 10, used green
and blue markers to happily draw the earth on his protest
sign outside City Hall. Hoosenally thanked Thunberg for
teaching Indigo and other young children that they can
and should fi ght for what they believe in.
“I would rather that they start learning this stuff early
and young because this is their future,” she said. “They
are going to have to advocate for themselves their whole
lives.”
Tons of questions about congestion plan
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
Attendees at Tuesday night’s congestion
pricing town hall at John
Jay College were mostly skeptical
that the plan to cut down traffi c, save
the subway and also the environment
was the way to go.
Among the offi cials and advocates
at the town hall were Councilmembers
Mark Levine and Helen Rosenthal; Nick
Sifuentes, executive director of the Tri-
State Transportation Campaign; Ed Pincar,
the Department of Transportation’s
Manhattan borough commissioner; and
Julie Tighe, executive director of the
New York League of Conservation Voters.
The congestion-pricing plan would
apply a surcharge to vehicles — which
could vary depending on the type of vehicle,
time of day and week — traveling
below 60th St. in Manhattan.
According to reporting from The New
York Times, drivers using the Brooklyn
Bridge and headed north of the F.D.R
Drive past 60th St. would not have to
pay the surcharge. At peak travel times
cars could be charged $11.52 to enter
the zone and trucks $25.43.
The anticipated $1 billion in annual
revenue generated from the plan would
then be used to fi nance improvements to
the city’s public transportation system.
“How can the M.T.A. cry poor when
I get on the darn M104 yesterday, and
what do I see?” Marcell Rosenblatt
asked during the town hall. “A moving
screen has been added to the ceiling to
tell me I have to give a seat to the elderly.”
Rosenblatt added that she and another
rider agreed that the sign was a waste
of money and wondered why the Metropolitan
Transportaion Authority would
invest in something so useless.
“And all we could think of was that
somebody’s crony friend got a great
deal,” she said.
Councilmember Levine said he understood
the community’s concern.
“Indeed, the M.T.A. has in the past
diverted revenue that should have belonged
to transit to unrelated projects,
most egregiously in one case to a ski resort
Upstate,” he told this paper.
“I know everybody in Albany who
cares about this issue is working to secure
mechanisms to keep the money
we raise in the mass-transit system,” he
said.
People at the town hall also were worried
that the revenue generated would
not be used in a smart way to improve
the city’s subway. Some were also concerned
that surcharges would cause car
owners to avoid driving into the zone or
cease using their vehicles altoghter, thus
worsening the city’s parking shortage.
Several who spoke were warned that the
city’s disbaled community could continue
to be marginalized.
“The disability community is all for
getting money for mass transit — mass
transit is very important,” said Phil Beder,
a member of Disabled in Action of
Metropolitan New York. “If congestion
pricing is the solution that you come up
with, then I would ask that accommodations
be made for those of us who depend
on our vehicles.”
Beder added that only 25 percent of
the city’s subway stations are handicap
accessible, meaning many disabled
people rely heavily on vehicles to move
around the city. In short, the surcharge
would be an unfair burden on an already
burdened community, he stressed.
D.O.T. Manhattan Commissioner
Pincar said regarding the concerns expressed
at Tuesday night’s town hall that
he had already been aware of them beforehand.
“We in the city and in the state are
trying to work through the details of
many of the questions we have heard,
and to present them to our citizens and
residents,” he said.
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