Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Free For All!

The Museum of the City of New York must be crazy to be slashing prices this low! Come on down to their lot on Earth Day and get FREE ADMISSION! FOR THE WHOLE PLANET! and check out the Growing and Greening New York Exhibit.
Two Green Team members recently visited the exhibit and think its great. Very hands on, interactive, and entertaining for all ages and interests.  We highly recommend it and what better way to see it then for free. Plus its Earth Day so afterwards you can run around Central Park across the street and profess your love for the planet. The exhibition will take the visitor through the course of a day-7 a.m. through 2 a.m.-and link routine activities with information documenting their collective impact on the environment, while also offering alternatives for making these actions less harmful to our world and highlighting innovations that will lead to greater sustainability by 2030.  

The complexities of the water system and strategies for reducing the impact of water use on the environment, for example, will be documented in the section of the exhibition that corresponds to 7 a.m., when many New Yorkers shower, prepare breakfast, and brush their teeth.  Mass transit and traffic congestion will be addressed in the "8 a.m." area of the exhibition, in which the city's extensive subway system and its role in reducing vehicular traffic will be highlighted as an inherent urban advantage in the struggle to achieve greater sustainability. 

The massive environmental impact of the city's commercial buildings will be documented in a section of Growing and Greening New York that will correspond to the 11 a.m. hour, in which forward-looking "building green" projects will be explored. Here, plans for new construction will be spotlighted as will innovative and beneficial solutions for existing structures.  Further along-and later in the imaginary day, at 3 p.m.-the exhibition will focus on parks and the importance of open space, not only as a source of respite, but because of its healthful impact on water and air quality. Consumption will be spotlighted in the 6 p.m. section, where the advantages of buying local and buying green will be illustrated, as will strategies for reducing the city’s waste.  

The 8 p.m. hour (in the context of the exhibition) will return the visitor to the home, where individual choices such as how to furnish a home, what type of lighting to use, and which appliances  to buy will be linked to such global issues as solid waste, water quality, and climate change. The nighttime hour of the exhibition, 2 a.m., will showcase-while the city sleeps-an overview of environmental issues facing cities around the world.  At any given "moment" in the exhibition, selected PlaNYC initiatives will be discussed and linked to larger environmental issues, updating visitors on the advantages and challenges of the proposals as well as on their current status. 
 PlaNYC2030 is an ambitious blueprint for New York City as it confronts the prospect of continued population growth and the urgency of protecting the city’s natural environment to improve urban life. Its 127 proposals range from planting more trees to designing better power plants to cleaning up brownfields to building new parks and housing across the five boroughs. Together, they suggest how the city might plan for growth while confronting issues of livability and global climate change.

Growing and Greening New York and PlaNYC will pose vital questions:  How must New Yorkers change to make a sustainable future possible?  How will the daily lives of all New Yorkers, and those who visit New York, be affected by sustainability initiatives at home, in the workplace, and in many of our public and recreational spaces?  What might a more sustainable city actually look like?  

Learn More.

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