The Myth of Sustainability

Authors Note: I first wrote the bones of this article in the year 2000 when I wrote extensively about the first rule of sustainability being Peace.  Late last summer I began writing more about externalities, and the need to link economic externalities to both environment and social justice issues. I hope to do more of the later in the coming months.

Sustainability involves the relationships between three core concerns- culture, economics, and society. Learning sustainability is about learning the complex interdependency between and amongst the three . Most people that understand sustainability know that the real bottom line is the environment.

Unfortunately many people that advocate sustainability, do not understand or care about that. Most of our sustainability platforms rest exclusively in economics, and pay a trickle down attention to culture and environment.

Across the board, economic growth and GDP is based on a consumer paradigm that promotes profit above all other factors. It treats culture and environment as exploitable commodities and markets rather than the immutable sustainability partners that they are. Sustainable growth, in this context, is an oxymoron.

Most of our economic progress today is based on this trickling down from the Oligarchs and 1%, who want you to believe, that access to wealth for the many comes from the acquisition of wealth by the few. The problem with this equation is that today, as I am sure that you have heard, more than 99% of the worlds wealth is controlled by les than 1% of the worlds people, and that divide is continuing to expand today and everyday.

According to the latest reports from the Federal Reserve, business profit margins have hit an all time high while wages have hit an all time low. Is this economic decline?  What is trickling down on you and me and small local business is from the big “guys” that are eviscerating our capacity to have a sustainable future. Consequences of that trickle include a growing cascade of some pretty big picture items including climate change, expansive poverty and growing social unrest.

Here are some fundamentals of achieving “sustainability.”

PEACE ON EARTH!

Without peace there can be no sustainability. There is a lot of profit in war-making. Fundamental economic hegemony drives political and cultural disagreements, and war has driven economic “progress” for centuries. Contemporary global disaster capitalism, enabled by the shock of war and imposed austerity fraud are economic policies decided by the hidden hands of the free market and born in war. These deliberate strategies have brought us destroyed and displaced peoples, cultures, environmental obliteration, and climate change, which is the ultimate failure of the free market. Without peace there can be no sustainability. Period.

Measuring Growth with Dystopian Externality

Economic theory and practice is a political construct, not science.

Contemporary economic practices place the costs of environment and social contexts as “externalities” outside the bottom line that is overwhelmingly prejudiced on determining profit and growth.

In that way, the environment is measured as a commodity in that ecosystems such as forests are valued as measured by board feet rather than the ecological value of a complete ecosystem.

A forest, a mountaintop, a river, lake, ocean, wetland is a complete ecosystem. Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson says, “Nature achieves sustainability through complexity.” Biodiversity champions life, and this is what makes planet earth unique.

The externality factor distorts our economic fundamentals and promotes destruction of biodiversity, -the underpinning of life and makes Earth unique.  We know through science and ecological economic measurements that a wetland is quantifiably more valuable than a parking lot, and a forest is more valuable than an industrial farm. Yet we use our planet as a sewer and economic measurements externalize pollution. We support short-term profit and growth while transferring the real costs of sustainability off to society.

Ecosystems, through biodiversity, naturally clean waters, provide fertile soils, and stabilize the atmosphere. Poisoning the ecosystem through exploitation causes human health collapse and skyrocketing costs.  An unstable atmosphere leads to disasters.  The quantifiable loss of these services transcends global GDP by 1000% and more. That is measurable. Why is it an externality?

David Suzuki calls conventional economics with externalities a form of “brain damage”.

If we understand this, we can do much to reverse the myth of sustainability, but will we?

Local economy, local green infrastructure, including adapting biodiversity support in urban development, conservation of energy rather than expanding consumption, waging peace, and land use reform which includes finding ways to incentivize protecting biodiversity and wildlands are strategies that we hardly think about, never mind engage in.

We need leadership. Instead, everyone is enraptured by shiny objects in a false pursuit of happiness represented by buying more stuff that we don’t need.

This includes me. This sustainability stuff depresses me and so I go shopping at Walmart to relive the pain. I bought four new pairs of cheap socks last week to replace the ones that wore out that I bought the week before. Go figure!

If we are to advance beyond a myth of sustainability, we need to identify and defeat the destructive fables around economic growth that colonize and conquer at the expense of social and environmental sanity.

As I tell my newly homeless friends in Staten Island and Jersey-

Without new strategies, “sustainability” is simply another economic deceit that will trickle down on us until the rains of the collapse of civilization wash us all away into the unstoppable deluge of time. It wont be the first time that earth has made major adjustments.

On a slightly happier note-

In this season of Peace on Earth, think about it. Without peace there can be no sustainability. Find ways to act. You can make a difference. Don’t forget to gift shop local. It may help you to emotionally work though our problems. New Years is soon.  And buy local, because local owners care about their community and caring about our community is, as one of our constant media messengers tells us “HUGE”.

The Rising Tides of Climate Change

The Rising Tides of Climate Change

Published in the Buffalo News, Sunday Viewpoints Cover, December 2, 2012

under the Title: 

Seeking a Sustainable Future-Region Must Treat Climate Change as an Emergency Situation

http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20121202%2FOPINION%2F121209983%2F1074

by Jay Burney

Image Courtesy Buffalo News and Daniel Zakroczemski

For decades denial has been a river running through Washington, Albany, Buffalo, and probably through your house.  Harris Polls conducted between 2007 and last year, indicate American’s belief in climate change has dropped from 71% to 44%.

Today, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and an election campaign that ignored climate change, we face an onrushing economic, cultural, and environmental reality that will shape our future. If for whatever reason you don’t want to call it climate change, call something else, call it a “situation”, because whatever you call it, we have a situation.

The question- are we in a position in Buffalo and WNY to address and mitigate potential consequences of climate change? Do we have a sustainable future? The answer is maybe.

During his election victory speech President Obama said, “We don’t want our children to live in an America… that is threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.”

It’s about time.  Now he and other policy makers including NY Governor Cuomo are raising climate issues understanding that if we do not, we face a precipitous decline in our future opportunities.   This includes the potential for disasters like hurricane Sandy that made many of our friends and families refugees’ -without shelter, food, power, warmth, and water. Imagine the consequences of a storm-caused, prolonged, deep winter power outage in WNY?

Since the Clinton White House sent Dr. Peter Sousounis here to release the initial Regional Climate Assessment (Great Lakes) in 2000, we have witnessed escalating global and regional change including warmer winters and extreme weather events.

 Sousounis said at that 2000 event held at the Statler “We can predict increasing average temperatures, changing lake levels, and extremes in weather conditions in the coming decades.”

Last spring NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Dr. James Hansen, initially a climate skeptic, declared that “Now we can go beyond global and regional predictions because we have actual evidence that climate change has arrived, and is worse than we thought it would be”.

This is all eye opening.

Yet climate skeptics continue to divide public opinion. Even the more rational recent discussions pit those that think Sandy was caused by climate change against those that say “not.”  The inconvenient truth is that Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, was a storm supercharged by climate change.  Lets not equivocate here. Without climate change Sandy would not have been Sandy. Period.

What our city and region does in the next months and years regarding climate change will help to characterize the future of our community.  This is a collective responsibility. We have to educate ourselves and invest in personal, neighborhood, and regional strategies that address our future. It must be a wide-ranging public policy discussion and a deeply personal discussion that affects virtually every aspect of our lives. This will determine our ability to survive as a species.  It is about you and me. We can make a difference.

Economic Strategies

There is a lot going on locally and more is on the way. A primary strategy to dealing with climate change is to address renewable energy issues.  Programs such as FIT- (Feed In Tariff) help to incentivize renewable energy by guaranteeing markets and values to investors and make renewables competitive in the energy market. This is important. It is a no brainer given our current political economy of consumerism and growth. But is it enough?

Sustainability rests on three pillars- Culture, Economics, and Environment and understanding relationships between these three pillars with one caveat- the environment is the bottom line. Without a substantial environmental context, the others could not exist.

Contemporary economic strategies identify the free market as fundamental, consumerism and growth as the tactic, and profit as the objective. Environment is considered to be an “externality”. This means that the costs to the environment of economic development, including polluted water, air, food, soils, climate impacts, and the very real costs of human health, are costs that are born by society and not the entities engaged in profit-taking.  This socialized offloading of responsibilities and real costs is a fatal flaw of the free market and makes “sustainable development” an oxymoron.  Climate change may be the biggest failure of free markets.

David Suzuki, the outspoken Canadian environmental activist, resigned form his own organization recently because of economic threats by big donors. He calls our economic system “brain cancer.”  Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine” says that this system empowers what she calls “disaster capitalists” -those that make money by deliberately creating or taking advantage of economic shocks and then taking advantage of a distracted citizenry. She would argue that disaster capitalism took full advantage of WNY after the surprise October snowstorm of 2006. Shocks include environmental crises and destabilization events such as the austerity budgets now sweeping parts of the European Union.

Klein says we need to treat climate change as an “emergency situation”.  “That means pulling out all the stops.”

Klein says that many well-meaning environmental organizations are as much a part of the problem as part of the solution. Because of their own economic pressures, many enviro groups have promoted business friendly solutions. If they rock the boat much, like Suzuki, they are threatened with defunding.  She says that while important, simply changing light bulbs to be more energy efficient, planting trees, or advocating investment schemes to make energy more renewable while ignoring the climate change elephant in the room, -consumerism and growth, are just not enough.  Klein says that most enviro-groups enable the economic and policy maker hands that feed them by addressing strategies that everyone in that bubble considers “winnable” and not strategies that push the envelope and demand solutions to the emergency that confronts our planet. Emergency Declared. Now what can we do?

Support Local Business

-Many activists point to local economies as a way toward a more sustainable future.  Corporate models such as Walmart, treat communities like Buffalo as an extractable profit center. They invest relatively little, and take a lot. When they are finished, they leave behind abandoned buildings and neighborhoods, a looted environment, and forgotten people.

Sarah Bishop the executive director of Buffalo First that is laying the groundwork for a local economy, says that “A local economy is about local dollars staying local, and local businesses being more responsible, responsive, and engaged about local issues including local culture and environment.

“Choosing a locally owned store generates almost four times as much economic benefit for the surrounding region as compared to shopping at a chain. This is a hopeful statistic in a city and region that has seen significant divestment over the past quarter century. “

Bishop recently co-sponsored a visit to Buffalo by Chicago activist Naomi Davis, founder of “Blacks in Green.”

Davis, whose focus is on livable and walkable self-sufficient neighborhoods, told us that a “city is comprised of many villages.” Each village can create local jobs, benefit, and investment, and support individuals and families. Can we do this in Buffalo?

-The ecological services of habitat including clean air and water are fundamental to life and have a great impact on wealth.  The atmosphere evolved as a part of a biodiverse system. Biodiversity helps to regulate atmospheric gasses including greenhouse gasses by absorbing and storing carbon. Protection of our remaining habitats -oceans, forests, freshwater ecosystems, is fundamental to addressing climate change.

Externalizing the environment in the name of economic development encourages the destruction of biodiversity.  This destruction has both cause and effect. Science is pointing to an ongoing current extinction episode, described as the sixth great extinction, with climate change as an accelerant.

Protect the Great Lakes

One of earth’s greatest natural resources are the Sweetwater seas known as the Great Lakes. Each year over 20 billion gallons of raw sewerage are dumped into the Great Lakes, which contain 1/5 of the world’s fresh surface water.  This causes biodiversity loss and subjects humans to disease and the ravages of climate change. Buffalo/WNY is responsible for between 2-4 billion gallons of raw sewerage released each year.

Jill Jedlicka Spisiak, executive director of the Buffalo Niagara RiverKeeper is working with the Buffalo Sewer Authority on a green infrastructure plan that if fully financed could reduce the release of raw sewerage significantly. She says-“A major investment in sewer infrastructure is needed”.   The cost of the project is estimated to be $500 million over 19 years. It is imperative that we find money to address this problem.

-there is a new approach to land use modeling that is beginning to emerge in WNY. The model would begin to evaluate land use from an ecological services perspective rather than the traditional land use models that characterize land as and economic commodity such as “agricultural” “mining”, etc. this new model would help to quantify the real values and costs of land, and would help to inform zoning and tax practices that currently “externalize” environment.

These are just a few examples of solutions that are emerging locally. Finding a comprehensive strategy including some of these projects can make a big difference and help to create a sustainable future for all of us.

This situation is an emergency-If we don’t treat it as one, and if we don’t seize the reins, we can expect a future predicated on a globalized disaster economy that will turn our region into the third world instead of the sustainability leader that we can become.

Language Counts- Extreme Enviornmentalists - A Call for Radical Accountability

Language Counts

(Original) 

Extreme Environmentalists, Fracking, Spills, Disasters, and the Freemarket

A Call for Radical Accountability

 -by Jay Burney

Written in March 2012 - Edited Version Published in Artvoice, 03/01/12

http://artvoice.com/issues/v11n9/guest_essay

Last week, BP went on trial for the damages caused by the Macondo/Deepwater Horizon Well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that caused 11 direct human deaths and untold damages to the ecology and economic future of the Gulf Coast.

In the years leading up to the Macondo/Deep Water Horizon well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, arguably the greatest human caused environmental disaster in history, the world was silent on the environment. For almost a decade the media downplayed environmentalism as an extremely obstructionist strategy preventing economic growth. Climate change deniers grabbed the headlines. The devastations of the energy industry were obscured by the American obsession with war and the latest Hollywood sex scandals. Media abandoned its seasoned reporters and went with industry “talking points” to construct storylines that had no critical basis.

Even after the ongoing disaster all but destroyed the ecosystems and human lifestyles of the Gulf, many still refer to the disaster as a “spill”. This was no spill.

This is a huge disaster that was caused by a deceptive industry intent on cutting corners and squeezing the most profit possible out of dangerous operations. Whenever you hear the phrase “Gulf Oil Spill”, you probably downplay the reality and enormity of this planet changing disaster.  This week, BP went on trial for the damages caused by the Macondo blow out that caused 11 direct human deaths and untold damages to the ecology and economic future of the Gulf Coast.

The New York State hydrofracking issue has brought an oil and gas industry sponsored hate campaign replete with a barrage of partisan and divisive language crafting. The phrase engineering is designed to incite passion against those that urge a cautious approach to hydrofracking.

This includes economic arguments that urge us to believe unconditionally that jobs and economic growth are totally dependent upon the industries ability to extract wealth for private gain from among other places, public properties and with public money.  The truth is much further away.

An industry oriented projection analysis of fracking affiliated New York State jobs has been repeated by the New York State DEC as it seeks to justify hydrofracking operations in the state.  DEC consultants,  -a local WNY company with strong ties to the oil and gas industry, Ecology an Environment, wrote in a taxpayer-funded report that an average NYS shale gas development scenario would bring 53,969 jobs.  Food and Water Watch, an activist organization opposed to hydrofracking published an independent analysis last November entitled “New York State Exaggerated Potential Job Creation from Shale Gas Development.”  It states that the Ecology and Environment projections are “deeply flawed”.  It states that “in the first year of an average scenario only 195 new jobs would be created for NYS residents, and that after 10 years only 600 jobs. After the 10^th year there would be almost no more new jobs created”.

There are other substantial economic, environmental, and social impacts. These include the probable boom and bust cycle that accompanies most natural resources extraction operations.  Communities should experience extraordinary downsides once the fracking operations cease.  These include significant infrastructure costs including roads and maintenance, damage to fragile and valuable ecological systems, and impacts on human health and well-being.

Principle concerns made by anti-fracking activists point to a consequential lack of science that substantiates that fracking safe.  There is more than enough evidence to suggest that both the process and chemicals injected into the earth permanently contaminates water that all life depends upon. This effects humans, animals, and agriculture and food production. There is significant science that clearly links chemicals used in hydrofracking with human disease including a wide array of cancers.  This business is as serious and as costly as death.

Many of these impacts are considered “externalities” by our traditional way of economic accounting. This means that many of the fracking costs will not be paid for by the industry and instead will be born by individuals and taxpayers. 

One of the principle issues is that many of the chemicals used are proprietary, which means that they are kept secret by the industry. While we know mostly what the chemicals are, by hiding the truth behind specific proprietary disclosures, the industry can disingenuously argue that chemicals found in well water and aquifers cannot be traced to the drilling sources.   In addition, gas and oil extractions are legally exempt from important parts of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act, the Community Right to Know Act, the Clean Air Act, The National Environmental Policy Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. This Bush/Cheney era energy legislation enjoyed bipartisan support. Accountability and the ultimate health costs are protected by a complex and costly legal system that ensures that costs will be borne by a wider society, -the taxpayers and individuals affected. These corporate entitlements are outrageous and dangerous.

 As of this writing the USEPA is at least a year away from releasing its science on the safety of hydrofracking.  Early drafts clearly point out that that contaminated well waters and aquifers are directly linked to fracking operations. This brings us to the common sense fact that the “economic impact” of gas extraction may be far from positive. Individuals that have testified against fracking include doctors, ecologists, scientists, economists, oil and gas extraction specialists, and DEC technical staff whom say that they do not have nearly enough resources to safely oversee fracking.

When the federal government states that they are considering requiring gas drilling companies to disclose proprietary formulas used in frack liquids, the question has to be “disclose to whom?” Unless this is fully disclosed to the public there is no possible way that the public will be safe.  Nor can the public make informed decisions about fracking safety. Many, including those inside government claim that the government does not have the resources to oversee the many aspects of fracking. It is not hard to imagine that as the size of our government recedes, the ability of oversight will also diminish.  If the formulas are disclosed to the public, we certainly will find a way to scrutinize, analyze and ultimately make informed and transparent choices about the activities, processes and impacts of this very dangerous industry and its economic, environmental and social consequences.

Environmental activists of all stripes have been and continue to be targets of the campaign to disarm citizen knowledge. This assault is led by industry apologists and death merchants, many of which stand to make huge profits if we the people allow fracking.

Industry apologists continue to target citizen awareness.

In early December Fred Dicker, the longtime state editor of the NY Post went off on “extreme environmentalists on a Fox TV broadcast suggesting that those that oppose fracking are radicals, use hyperbole, are extremists and uninformed.  Local news accounts from our “legacy” TV and print outlets carry that same message.  More often than not the media carries uncritical accounts of hydrofracking issues from the point of view of the businesses that have the money to spend underwriting the local “news” operations. I am sure that most of you think that hydrofracking in NYS is good for our economy and will provide lots of jobs.

The propaganda greased by the big companies goes all the way to the Governors office, and beyond.  Some of the justifications go beyond the pale.

Recently, Republican presidential candidate Rick (google it) Santorum, whom seems to believe that his radical brand of fundamental Christianity should guide our political/economic/social destiny, suggested that God made planet earth in order to allow humans to exploit its natural resources. He said that “radical environmentalists believe that man should protect the earth”.  He said, “That is a phony ideal, we are not here to protect the earth”, and that “the objective is man, not environment”.  How does one even begin to address this exasperating disconnect?  Without a healthy earth, a healthy planet, there is no “man”. If we poison the planet with phony idealism such as Santorums, humans disappear. It’s that simple.  This election may very well be about the ability of humans to survive.

Activists that are willing to go against the grain and stand up for ecological integrity, clean water and air, and fight with their words and actions against a monstrous corporate financial and propaganda machine should be considered heros and patriots. Instead some of the mainstream media parrots the industry talking points and portrays activists in as mislead, selfish, obstructionists, socialists, or worse eco-terrorists. That last label puts individuals and organizations that oppose fracking and are willing to say so on a list of potential criminals and the consequences are becoming increasingly dire.

Just because someone is so green that the trees hug them doesn’t or shouldn’t mean that they are extremists. Why aren’t the profiteers and their spokespuppets that use disinformation, incomplete half-truths and quick decision-making that masques economic, environmental, and social truths considered the extremists? Who are the criminals here?

Set Out

A Call for Radical Accountability

The first order of business is to ban fracking.

Beyond that we should make the industry be totally accountable by

-Revisiting the federal exemptions from environmental and community protections.

-Make the industry pay for independent analysis.

It is time that we adopt a newly emerged from the “Occupy Movement concept”- "Radical Accountability".

Lets take the promises of jobs and safety from of the industry and codify them, with financial incentives. For instance, if the state is not going to wait for the science, do the health analysis, or conduct full economic evaluations, make the profiteers accountable by demanding that corporate entitlements be incentivized by:

-A public accountability panel with each appointee and no members or their families linked to industry hydrofracking profits. The independent panel must be funded by the private sector and will include a privately financed fund to independently evaluate health and economic impacts of hydrofracking in NYS.

-Full public disclosure of chemicals used, to include tracers on the chemicals and substances used at each site, so that when they appear in water, they can be sourced.

-Adequate private financed bonding (A minimum $50 million bond for each well) for potential public damages.  Let the industry bear the costs, not society. Let the freemarket decide! Make the externalities internal transparent costs.

-Publically disclosed job guarantees linked to every individual well and the aggregate that includes penalties for nonperformance, and under performance. Negotiate job creation contracts in public, and be financially incentivized and accountable if they turn out not to be true.

Without these actions, the public takes all the risks, there is no free market and the corporate entitlements will continue to eviscerate the 99%.  

Without these actions we cannot find a way to protect our environment, and not to put too fine a point on it, but without ecosystems there is no economy.

Buffalo’s New Green Code -Complete Streets and a Future that Works!

Buffalo’s New Green Code -Complete Streets and a Future that Works!

By Jay Burney

This article appeared in the Sunday Buffalo News as a ViewPoints cover under the title: 

" Buffalo's complete Streets strategy aims to make city more livable" September 27, 2012

http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20120930%2FOPINION%2F120939983%2F1074

If you ride a bike or drive a car in the streets of Buffalo you know that there are safety issues involving the conflicts between pedestrians, bicyclists, and motor vehicles.

All of that is beginning to change. You may have noticed in your own neighborhoods that there is a lot of street construction going on.

After years of criticism focused on the complexity of maneuvering through the patchwork of zoning rules and regulation, the City is addressing its coding and zoning systems. Soon we will have a new place-based land use and zoning tool that supports livable neighborhoods. This includes streets redesigns. This promises to bring a better quality of life for residents, businesses, and visitors.

The new tool is called the Buffalo Green Code. It is a land use plan and a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) that is described as “combining zoning, subdivision, and public realm standards into a single document”.  In an interview with the Buffalo News, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told us that “the Green Code is designed to help transform Buffalo into a economically competitive city by making our neighborhoods and districts more livable. This will benefit all of our citizens.”

Brendan Mehaffy, the director of the City of Buffalos Office of Strategic Planning has spearheaded the effort. “People are going to be seeing the results. We have been working hard, meeting with residents, businesses, and others to make sure that we are all working in the same direction. We will have several more community work group meetings before we get to a final draft to send before the Common Council by the end of this year”.

One of the most critical parts of the new UDO is a concept called “Complete Streets”.

Complete streets are right-of-ways designed to safely accommodate multiple forms of transportation, which in turn makes our neighborhoods more walkable and livable. This improves our quality of life.   As streets are redeveloped they adopt design and construction standards that meet new environmental needs and provide safe transportation lanes for all users including automotive, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Environmental standards include reducing street runoff into the sewer system and appropriate tree plantings.

Justin Booth, the founder of Go Bike Buffalo and the Buffalo Complete Streets Coalition which was funded in part by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, has been working with policy makers, private entities, and civic leaders to create complete streets infrastructure in the city and region.  Last summer he brought together a complete streets “summit” in Buffalo that attracted speakers and participants from across the United States. He has traveled with local policy makers to complete streets conferences around the county. His work has made a big difference.

Booth told us that “Complete Streets are economic tools that can revitalize communities.  “They are streets for everyone, not just cars – they promote healthier and greener forms of transportation and make it easier to drive less, which in turn leads to stronger communities.”

Pat Whalen, COO of the rapidly developing Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, also sees the many benefits that complete streets have for communities and the public and private sectors.  Earlier this year, the BNMC created a Transportation Management Association (TMA) comprised of BNMC member institutions, state transportation agencies and local advocacy groups, with the goal being to work together to help advance a more sustainable transportation system for the city and the Campus.

“We strongly support the development of a multimodal transportation system within the region that allows employees the option to get to work in many ways – train, bus, biking, walking, as well as driving.  Encouraging alternative modes of transportation reduces costs for employees and employers, is more environmentally friendly, and encourages economic spinoff in surrounding neighborhoods.  Complete Streets are vital to our overall goal of creating a distinct, innovative, healthy community.”

This is all good news for Buffalo.

 Changing View of Streets

Mayor Brown is demonstrating a big time shift in the attitudes of government leaders and policy makers by investing in the Buffalo Green Code and Complete Streets strategies.

“It is our intention to continue to make Buffalo more livable for everyone on a 24/7 basis. We are and will remain a live, work, and play community. ”  “By doing this, we will attract more business and more people will want to live here,” said the Mayor. 

He adds emphatically, “When people talk about great American cities, we want to be on that table.  We think that these strategies will bring us there.”

Buffalo Department of Public Works Commissioner Steven J. Stepniak has led an effort to implement complete streets on streets that have been repaved or rebuilt during the past several months. There has been tremendous activity across the city as portions of Niagara Street, Main, McKinley, South Park, Clinton, Ellicott, Washington, Elmwood, and Linwood are being reworked and improved. “By December 31 of this year,” Commissioner Stepniak told us “the city will have created 22 miles of bicycle lanes since 2006, with 11 done just this year. It is our intention to do 10 additional miles each year.”

Pedestrians, bicycles, and cars together?

Bike and pedestrian safety issues have to be of paramount concern to everyone.  As we build out complete streets, motorized versus pedestrian and bicycle conflicts will continue to be a part of the story.  We can avoid the sometimes tragic consequences of sharing roadways if we understand and respect the legal obligations and personal responsibilities associated with using the roadways. Often, common sense will make a huge safety difference.

Safety, the Law, and Common Sense

NYS Laws excerpted here do not represent legal advice or judicial determinations. They are here for informational purposes only.

-In New York State, bicycle drivers and motorized vehicle operators have basically the same rights to most urban roadways and share the same responsibilities. Generally, a bicycle has every right to be in a traffic lane as motor vehicles. By law, bicyclists are required to be in the road. It is illegal for an adult to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk. Bicycle lanes should be respected by all.

-Bicyclists are required to ride with traffic instead of against. They are required to follow and obey signs, signals, pavement markings, and to make turn signals, just as automobiles do.

-Operators of motor vehicles overtaking a bicycle from behind are required to “pass to the left of such bicycle at a safe distance until safely clear thereof.”

-No bicycle passengers under one year old are allowed, and no passengers at all unless the bicycle is properly and legally equipped. 

-Articles carried must be properly fastened and not obstruct the view of the bicycle operator.

-All bicycles in use between ½ hour after sunset to one half hour before sunrise need to be quipped with special lamps and specific reflective materials.

-Bicycle operators under the age of 14 are required to wear protective headgear.

-Pedestrians have important rights and rights of way.  They have right of way at crosswalks with no signals, they have right of way always before a car can make a right or left hand turn. If their activity is not lawful, common sense says, yield to pedestrians.

Pulling Together for a Future that Works

Skeptics say that traditionally, the framework of getting things done in Buffalo has been complicated by the maze of agencies, departments, and governments involved.  It has often been demonstrated that sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. This has resulted in duplicated services and lost opportunities.

Now, the city working with county, state and federal agencies, and groups like the Complete Streets Coalition and the BNMC’s TMA seem to be changing this, The Green Code is becoming a blueprint for how we can all work together.

Justin Booth told us “Cooperation at all levels of government is always a communications issue. Thankfully we now have agencies at the federal, state, county and city level, and in the private sector, that are investing in Complete Streets.   It seems like more an more we are on the same page.”  Mayor Brown agrees. “Collaboration is better today than ever” he told us.

As our new street infrastructure rolls out is a god time for the citizens and residents of Buffalo to find ways to use and understand these new designs. Users of the streets need to find ways to respect and cooperate with each other if these things are to work. Safety and a sustainable future depend on all of us. Lets both enjoy our new opportunities and continue to engage with the city in the development of the Green Code.  

You Can See the Summer From Here

You can see the Summer from Here

Published as a Sunday ViewPoints Cover Buffalo News May 2012

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/viewpoints/article865056.ece

Emerging visions of Buffalo’s outer harbor could transform our region into a sustainable 21^st century powerhouse.

By Jay Burney

Kayakers on the Buffalo River near Grain Elevator Canyon

In just a few short days, Memorial Day weekend will be upon us and Western New Yorkers will once again joyously leap across the threshold into another magnificent summer season.

As we break out the bathing suits and sandals and lather up with suntan lotion, we have plenty of reason to head on down to the emerging and boisterous Buffalo waterfront. Public access and engagement has quickly become one of our most profound connections to the season, our mixed cultures, and to the spectacular sweet water seas that help characterize our area as a global level paradise.

Now is a great time for each of us to think about the real value of outer harbor development.   What we do here, and who does it will significantly impact the very consequential futures of our regional economy, environment, and quality of life.

Planning and development strategies are now moving into final stages at various levels of government.  Decades of work ranging from the long defunct Horizons Commission to the very alive City of Buffalo Comprehensive Plan, Queen City Hub, the Queen City Waterfront, and the very exciting new City of Buffalo Green Code focusing on unified form based zoning, are going to create and enforce policy level decisions about what and how we decide to take advantage of what many agree is our most valuable public asset.

Of great consequence and designed to inform the Green Code, a partnership formed by the City of Buffalo, New York State, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation, and the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper has focused on three Brownfield Opportunity Areas (BOA) in the city. One is the Buffalo Harbor BOA which includes the outer harbor.

This area is considered a brownfield because of the legacy of generations of pollution from industry and urban impacts. The BOA program is designed to help return dormant brownfield sites back to productive use and environmental quality. The partners emphasize that the BOA process will contribute to the city’s revitalization. Once completed the land use and built form components of the study will be included in the City’s Green Code.

What is the opportunity for the region?

Our waterfront that comprise parts of Lake Erie, The Buffalo River, and the Niagara River, are uniquely situated on one of the planets most consequential and valuable natural resources.

-The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system on earth. Together they hold more than 20% of the world’s fresh surface water. 

-According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 90% of the U.S. supply of fresh water comes from the Great Lakes.

Clean water is a basic sustainability issue that we must find ways to protect and restore if future generations are going to have a sustainable quality of life.  Recognizing this, and working to help to educate about this resource, is a huge step toward global stewardship and leadership. This is part of our opportunity.

The Spirit of Buffalo near the entrance to the Buffalo Harbor

Kate Mini Hilliman of Buffalo Urban Outdoor Education, which has engaged thousands of the region's youth in Great Lakes learning on the iconic tall ship “Spirit of Buffalo”, says that the water is one of our most valuable assets and probably one of our most misunderstood and undervalued assets.

“We live in a city where many people have never actually been on the water, especially children. Every day during the spring and summer we bring kids from the urban environment out into the lake. They are usually pretty apprehensive before we cast off at the Central Wharf, but by the time we hit the Buffalo Lighthouse they are looking back at the beautiful city with amazement and wonder. During our program they make positive connections to the lake and begin to understand the biology and geography in ways that will influence them for the rest of their lives.” 

That is a consequential connection. In a city that lost its connectivity to the water with the building of the I-190, its important to bring both old and young generations back to the waters edge and out into the sweet waters of the Niagara River and Lake Erie. This is our future.

It is not lost on some of our most outspoken political representatives that have strong beliefs that appropriate waterfront development will characterize our future.

Congressman Brian Higgins who has focused much of his Congressional career on Buffalo’s outer harbor and brought hundreds of millions of dollars into play here, says that the waterfront defines our region. “People from all over, Ellicottville, Williamsville, Amherst are as excited about what happens here as are the city residents.  We are at a game changing moment.  And the good news is that our local progress is unified in ways that we have not seen in the past 75 years of visioning.  What we decide now, and how we invest will guide our future economic opportunities and our potential for jobs growth and will help us create the kind of city we want for the 21^st century”.

NYS 144^th District Assemblyman Sean Ryan recently authored important legislation making the Buffalo River an eligible water body for Local Waterfront Revitalization Program funding. This could mean millions of dollars to the waterfront.  He is concerned about the NFTA ownership of waterfront properties and wants them to divest themselves of property so that they can focus just on the mission of public transportation. He suggests that there are other state agencies that need to take the waterfront lead, but cautions that there are not enough public voices making decisions. “We need more public representation and engagement on the Board of Directors of the ECHDC and not just established decision makers that represent private interests,” he told us. This land is valuable but only after significant public investment. We should make sure that development promotes public access and not just a privatization of public resources made marketable by public investments.”

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and a vocal advocate of an ecologically healthy Great Lakes. She knows the impact of clean water on our regional economy. She believes that substantial Washington resources such as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative can directly benefit our region.

Jill Spisiak Jedlicka, Director of Ecological Programs at Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper says that Riverkeeper has brought millions of dollars towards revitalizing Buffalo’s waterfront.  Jedlika says that maintaining public access is fundamental. She says that appropriate economic development that respects ecology is important and that an appropriate mix of uses can be targeted for the outer harbor.  “Economic health and environmental health go hand in hand” she told us.

Conservation and Economic Development-Recreation, Tourism, Education

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council the annual percentage of world GDP based on tourism was 9.3% in 2010 and growing at almost 5% per year.   In 2011 its impacts translated to $6.3 trillion in GDP,  and 255 million jobs (1 in 12). This makes tourism the worlds largest industry.  According to the World Trade Organization, ecotourism and nature based tourism is the fastest growing sector with heritage tourism right behind. Tourism in the Greater Niagara region is a $2 billion annual industry supporting over 40,000 jobs. We can build on that. Eco and heritage tourism could be this regions future. These are the greenest of green jobs and if developed here, could mark a permanent upturn in our economic and ecological health.

National Marine Sanctuary

When Sylvia Earle, a former Chief Scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric (NOAA) and current Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society came to Buffalo a few years back, I asked her about conservation and economic development strategies for the Great Lakes. She told me, “you should think about a marine sanctuary.”

Currently NOAA administers 14 National Marine Sanctuaries in diverse locations from Hawaii, Alaska, and Washington State to the Florida Keys.  Marine Sanctuaries are designed to promote conservation while allowing compatible commercial and recreational activities. There is only one NOAA designated Marine Sanctuary in the Great Lakes and that is in Thunder Bay in Lake Huron. This sanctuary has been an economic powerhouse for the region and it is currently exploring ways to expand.

Why Not a Lake Erie Niagara River National Marine Sanctuary?

We have world-class biodiversity here including the Niagara River Corridor “globally significant” Important Bird Area recognized because of both the diversity and threats to migrating birds, fish, and other wildlife. We have marine access heritage sites offshore and onshore including our grain elevators, the underground railroad, early harbor, First People, and War of 1812 that help to tell the story of America.

Our marine sanctuary should include portions of Lake Erie, the Niagara River, and the Buffalo River, which is newly recognized as eligible for state Local Waterfront Revitalization funding thanks to Assemblyman Ryan’s legislation. Other funding sources could include the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, and appropriate private investment that protects open space on the waterfront and prevents urban sprawl.  Clearly how we develop our onshore and offshore outer harbor will be key to investing in a consequential recreation and tourism economy.

Imagine building an economic plan around conservation, tourism and recreation.   World class bird watching, recreational fishing, boating, kayaking, sailing, and all of the service contexts including tours, service liveries and amenities that would come with this kind of plan can characterize our 21^st century region. Take this a step further- Imagine a vision of a Woods Hole type research and education center focused on sustainable Great Lakes waters.  Imagine our local colleges and universities tying in to make our region a leader in Great lakes sustainability. Imagine all of this as our future! If we work together, we can make our future as bright as the rising sun.

Proposed National Marine Sanctuary

Times Beach Nature Preserve in downtown Buffalo

---

( Set out)

Buffalo Harbor BOA Principles  provided by Urban Strategies, Inc. –Buffalo BOA Consultants      http://buffalobrownfieldopportunities.com/

Principles

The following emerging principles were presented to the break-out groups for their consideration:

1.            Seek to better integrate the Waterfront and Harbor area into the Downtown experience. Make these areas an extension of the Downtown.

2.            Expand efforts to harness the unique economic, cultural and recreational opportunities provided by the Waterfront. Use the amenity of the water as a catalyst for positive change.

3.            Continue to work to animate the Waterfront year around through a program of events, recreation and culture.

4.            Make it a place that people want to come to and where there are things to do and see.

5.            Protect and celebrate the waterfront as a working waterfront. Balance interests.

6.            Work to remediate and restore the health of the Waterfront: Clean, Green and Beautiful.

7.            Work to improve accessibility to the Waterfront and make it a truly public space for all to enjoy.

8.            Make the waterfront a public space for all ages and abilities to enjoy.2

9.            Plan Waterfront Growth Smartly

There was general consensus on the emerging principles. There were, however, additional priorities the community wished to be added to the list, including:

-emphasizing Buffalo Harbor BOAs role in both the City and Regional context;

-recognizing the Harbor’s ecological significance;

-the need to include sustainability and environmental performance as a part of the BOAs future;

-ensure that the waterfront is usable year around – winter and summer;

-recognize the industrial legacy of the waterfront;

-and keep the waterfront and access to the water public.