Community New & Politics - Articles

By most accounts, deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world’s roads. According to the World Carfree Network (WCN), cars and trucks account for about 14 percent of global carbon emissions, while most analysts attribute upwards of 15 percent to deforestation.

As the flood waters recede, we all want to get our homes, our places of employment, our communities, and our roads, rails, bridges, and tunnels clean and back to normal as quickly as possible. However, be cautious, hurricane cleanup and restoration work may have serious risks. Doing the wrong thing can endanger your safety, your health, and possibly your life.

The non-profit League of Conservation Voters (LCV) helps Americans sort out the good guys from the bad when it comes to the environmental track records of candidates in important high-level races across the country. Besides endorsing specific candidates, the group also keeps a running “dirty dozen” list of the politicians with the worst environmental records. Meanwhile, the group’s LCV Action Fund is a related political action fund that can channel funding to the candidates it supports.

Now that Hoylman has won the State Senate race, the hard part begins. What will his initiative do about the critical issues facing SoHo? Will affordable housing be preserved? WIll the abusive and retaliative landlord attacks on rent-stabilization and rent-control (with the assistance of the courts), be investigated and prosecuted? Will the remaining guerilla art, such as the Bob Bolles sculptures in “Sunflower Park”—which should be renamed “Bob Bolles Park”—be returned from Randall’s Island preserved?