Climate Corner - November 2024

Welcome to the Climate Corner! This column of the newspaper will be an area to discuss current environmental concerns and topics occurring globally and specifically in New York City. In each edition, I will discuss environmental-related topics that feel relevant to your everyday life and some that do not feel as familiar. Regardless, I ensure that this corner will give you a greater awareness of our climate and environmentally friendly routines which you can practice in your everyday life. This month, I’ll be focusing on composting in NYC and taking local action.

Composting in NYC:

As of October 6th, all buildings in NYC are required to provide a composting bin. This project originally began in Queens in 2022, but now is being made mandatory for all New Yorkers. On the street, you may notice orange trash bins that read “COMPOST”, anyone can put their scraps to be composted here! In Mr. Zheutlin’s junior and senior Advanced Environmental Studies class, students held various conversations on this topic. Some students even completed a personal study of the significance of composting. As attested by students in my class, composting will absolutely alter New York’s “perspective and relationship to the environment.”

Taking Local Action:

Reduce, reuse, and recycle. According to Ardoin, a senior fellow at Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, who published a Nature Sustainability article on individual’s bias toward recycling, “People should try to focus more on reducing and reusing, rather than recycling.” This is exactly what individuals can do to be environmentally friendly, no matter their local environment. Whether living in a city, town, or suburbs, individuals can recycle wasted food or reduce this food waste. Moreover, individuals can take action and speak up about the state of the environment. Especially for those living in cities where public transportation is at their disposal, taking public transportation allows for lessened carbon emissions with the absence of car travel. In addition, individuals can try and eat more vegetables than meat, as the manufacturing of meat contributes to a great amount of carbon emissions: similarly, limiting food waste, speaking up, and taking action in local communities is a highly effective methods for social change.