Upper Green Side

Support the Renewal of Greenmarkets for 2007

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Last year, Upper Green Side was at the forefront of bringing local food, outdoor greenmarkets back to the Upper East Side after many years of not having any in the area. We worked with local elected officials like Councilmembers Lappin and Garodnick to win community board approval for two sites that were welcomed by the respective local communities.

CM Lappin, Scott Stringer and Father Angelo at the St. Stephen’s Greenmarket Ribbon Cutting.

It was clear from the start that these new Greenmarkets created a greater sense of local community, by providing an outdoor market for local folks to meet each other, talk about recipes and talk to the farmers that grew food locally.

Shoppers at the 92nd Street Greenmarket enjoying freshly picked, locally grown produce

Now it is time to renew this community’s commitment to the Greenmarkets by coming out to the next Community Board meeting on Tuesday March 6th at the NY Blood Center - 67th street between First and Second at 7pm. There are still some narrow commercial interests that see Greenmarkets as competition and would like to see the Greenmarkets disappear. We need to stand up to support these markets to ensure their continued success at creating a better community, a better environment and a better chance for our local farmers to save their land against development.

Big Crowds at the 82nd Street Greenmarket early in the morning

Send a note of support to the community board office at info@cb8m.com and please attend the meeting so that we can have another great season of greenmarkets this year.

Regarding Carbon Emissions and Offsets.

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Here at Upper Green Side, we are very concerned about taking personal responsibility for our carbon emissions that contribute to Global Warming. Changing your light bulbs to compact fluorescents or driving less is a way to reduce your carbon output, but even the most conscientious environmentalist will be personally responsible for some carbon emissions. You can do things to offset those carbon emissions, but first it’s good to take stock of what is driving your emissions.

There are many good carbon calculators available on the web to help you figure out your carbon footprint. Some are more precise and require specific amounts of kilowatts, miles in automobiles or planes and/or heating oil/natural gas you use in a given year while others ask general information about your lifestyle to create an estimate of your footprint. Use these to figure out where you can make the biggest carbon savings in your own life. Try out a few of them and see if you get similar answers. Depending on the calculator, you may come out with somewhat different answers, but the general findings of what is driving your personal contribution should be similar.

Even after you have pared your carbon footprint down to the lowest level you are comfortable with, there are ways to help offset the remaining amount to zero or even beyond. The first and best next step you can do is talk about what you did with your friends, family, coworkers and neighbors about how you reduced your carbon footprint. You may even want to help spur them into action by making it even easier for them by buying them Compact Fluorescent bulbs to install in their homes. Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool because the message is usually practical and from trustworthy sources. Focus on the positive aspects of what you have done and how it makes you feel. In addition to talking to people you see on a regular basis, consider sending out custom emails to several people you know well detailing what you personally have done and what web resources that you found helpful and would recommend to others looking to make better decisions to reduce their carbon emissions. Ask local businesses what they are doing to lower the amount of carbon they are responsible for as well. If enough people ask, they might see a marketing opportunity to attract customers like yourself.

There are many new organizations that are working on projects to reduce carbon emissions that allow individuals to buy offsets of their individual emissions, like TerraPass (for profit) and the Carbon Fund (non-profit). Grist magazine did a review of all the major carbon offset programs and the basics of how they structure their programs and how they spend the money donated. Consider all the information you read on their websites and decide what program you like the best. All of this is to help people consider carbon emissions in all the major decisions about where to live, how to to get around, what food to eat, what appliances to buy and use.

So in general, do what you can individually, discuss with others what they can do and give money to organizations and support businesses that are working to reduce their carbon emissions.

Drink Tap Water for a Cleaner Environment

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Ok, I drink bottled water every so often, like when it’s the only thing around. And I’ll re-use bottles several times before I put it into the recycling bin. Mostly I carry around a reusable Nalgene bottle and fill it with tap water. But there are many people in New York City who consume most, if not all of their water from bottles instead of the tap. All of that water is delivered by trucks from hundreds or thousands of miles away. For instance, Fiji water comes from nearly half a world away.

One way that NYC could become a role model to the rest of the nation is by going back to the tap. This was recently highlighted in Brooklyn Papers about one woman’s effort in Park Slope to steer people away from bottled water.

Continue reading Drink Tap Water for a Cleaner Environment…

Where Can I Find Non-Toxic Cleaning Products?

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There have been huge advances in the development of non-toxic household cleaners that can do the same job as old hard chemical cleaners. Green cleaning products are good for the environment by preventing toxic agents from entering our sewage system which can be dumped into our waterways. They are also good for the health of you and your family. To learn more about the potential harmful effects of toxic cleaners see Seventh Generation’s webpage on household hazards.
There is also a non-profit group called “Wellness in the Schools” of concerned parents piloting the use of non-toxic cleaners in the city’s schools. They state that “children are uniquely vulnerable to toxins” because;

• pound for pound children take in more contaminants than adults,
• they have certain behaviors like lying on the floor or hand-to-mouth behaviors which expose them to more toxins,
• schools are cleaned every day with industrial strength cleaners which leave behind residues,
• researchers have found that early exposure to environmental toxins appear more likely to produce chronic disease than simliar exposures encountered later in life,
• many conventional cleaners contain asthmagens (asthma triggers)
• asthma is the number one cause of absenteeism in the NYC public schools.

And to ask the question at the top of the page, here’s a short list of stores that sell at least a few non-toxic cleaner, including Seventh Generation products:

Give them a shot and you’ll be surprised and impressed. And send us emails about other good non-toxic cleaning products that you would recommend to your neighbors.