By: Chandu Visweswariah August 16 was the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the most significant piece of climate legislation ever passed anywhere in the world. And New York State just announced incentives and subsidies from the Environmental Bond Act (EBA) that all of us helped to pass in November 2022. This financial assistance is additive to Federal…
By: Chandu Visweswariah [Author’s note: this blog is adapted from CURE100’s August newsletter’s “opening banter.”] Sitting here in New York, it’s easy to think of climate change as a “faraway” phenomenon. Hurricane Sandy filled our subway stations with water in 2012, and there was much talk of building sea walls and reducing emissions. We did neither and Sandy slowly faded…
By: Chandu Visweswariah Every Town and Village has a potpourri of governmental environmental organizations like a Sustainability Committee, a Conservation Advisory Council and a Climate Smart Community. There’s even a NY State Association of Conservation Commissions. There’s also typically a grab bag of local and national environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). With all this fervor and well-meaning effort, you would think…
By: Chandu Visweswariah The fossil fuel industry has defiantly projected that we will need their products till the end of this century or beyond. They are wrong. And if there’s any chance we will burn fossil fuels for another eight decades, God help our children, grandchildren and generations to come who will inhabit the planet at the turn of the…
By: Chandu Visweswariah There’s a dark and a troubled side of lifeThere’s a bright and a sunny side tooThough we meet with the darkness and strifeThe sunny side we also may view. — From a song by the Carter Family Over the years, many of you have read my blogs pointing out the dire consequences of climate change. I recently…
By: Chandu Visweswariah This short blog should be mandatory reading for all G7 Summit delegates in Japan. With the flurry of recent policy and scientific information, where do we stand on climate change and global warming? What are the most likely outcomes? The chart below outlines the outcomes of global warming with impacts in this century and beyond. The left…
By: Chandu Visweswariah On this Earth Day, with all the wonderful Earth Day festivals and activities and speeches that have united and invigorated us, the only thing that actually counts is reduction of greenhouse gases to stabilize our climate system. If you want to get straight to the action part and bypass the scientific rationale, skip forward to this symbol…
By: Chandu Visweswariah The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 (Assessment Report 6) Synthesis Report states that we have a remaining carbon budget of 500 gigatons or 500 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent. What does this mean in practical terms? A carbon budget at an instant of time means that the cumulative emissions from that instant until…
By Bob DeAngelis As the price of fossil fuels increases, the opportunities for savings do too. Each of the actions below can save money and help the environment. Here are some ideas that I recommend you consider: Home Heating Get a free home energy audit. The contractor will identify areas for improvement and investment. This provides the foundation for any…
By: Lexi Schaffer Slow fashion is an approach branded by many as outdated – handcrafted, durable clothing, meant to be passed down and worn from generation to generation. In recent years, it has been replaced by fast fashion: mass-produced garments, meant to be thrown away in mere months after a trend fades or a sleeve rips. So how does this…
