One of the bigger themes in Frog’s workshops following Sandy was thinking about ways for FEMA to empower the community relief efforts that spring up organically after disasters strike.
“One thing that we noticed during our research during Sandy is that communities help themselves.” One of Frog’s proposals was to formalize this process with “Franchise DRCs." The idea is that FEMA could create partnerships with national chains, like Starbucks, Ikea, Home Depot or Verizon, whose outposts would get kits with setup instructions, signage and supplies. These locations would act as semi-official, community-run DRCs, which FEMA could build upon once they had people on the ground.
Stephen Elbaz revealed mold behind the wall vinyl at a Brooklyn co-op. Uli Seit for The New York Times
nytimes.com - by Mireya Navarro - May 1, 2013
Since the hurricane, thousands of homeowners have been startled to discover that co-ops are largely barred from federal disaster assistance. The rules have stirred growing criticism from members of Congress from the region, who contend that the system fails to take into account how people live in New York City, where co-ops have flourished.
The lawmakers are calling for the rules to be changed, saying that as severe weather becomes more common, the region will be increasingly shortchanged in disaster aid.
Image: Solar panels. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
thinkprogress.org - January 9th, 2014 - Kiley Kroh
New York governor Andrew Cuomo delivered his State of the State address on Wednesday and announced an even greater commitment to clean energy, including $1 billion in new funding for solar energy projects.
Launched in 2012, Cuomo’s NY-Sun Initiative has already been a tremendous success, with almost 300 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaic capacity installed or under development, more than was installed in the entire decade prior to the program.
Now with another major financial boost, Cuomo aims to install 3,000 (MW) of solar across New York.
ecowatch.com - by Brandon Baker - December 31, 2013
It wasn’t what Professor Mark Jacobson was saying—if you’re an advocate of renewable energy, you hear this kind of talk on a daily basis—as much as it was the platform. Solar and wind energy simply don’t get the late-night limelight.
The Rockaway Resilience Network has engaged a full set of actvities for 2014 to address the Rockaways' mission critical gaps and to move the community toward sustainability.
For those seeking to actively help the Rockaways improve its resilience and sustainability, please consider coming to one of the upcoming Rockaway Resilience Roundtable meetings, or help with the Rockaways' neighborhood resilience assessments.
insurancejournal.com - by Andrew G. Simpson - January 7, 2014
The U.S. Senate is expected to take a key vote soon on a bill that would delay some of the flood insurance rate hikes triggered by the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. . .
. . . The procedural vote on S.1846 was originally planned for Wednesday, but the Senate is still dealing with an extension of federal unemployment benefits, delaying consideration of the flood bill. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), a major advocate for the bill, told USA Today that “next week is more realistic” for any vote on the flood bill.
“That view behind me is not a painted backdrop!” said Geoff Lawton to the camera. But the view looked great from where I was standing. Brooklyn Grange is a rooftop farm with a magnificent view looking over the Manhattan skyline.
Sitting on a concrete roof, totaling 2.5 acres and producing more than 50,000 pounds of organically-grown vegetables each year, you need to walk its length to appreciate how vast this rooftop garden truly is in scale.
We had been given one hour to film this place. The sun was setting. We were in the “magic hour” to film and needed to hurry. There was a lot to do.
Geoff walked down the narrow lanes of planted vegetables. Four to six inches of dirt was all the plants were allowed to grow in—very well drained dirt that resembled sharp river sand. It didn’t look like a normal loamy soil to my untrained eye.
Nets of Freedom creating mesh networks. Image: Strelka Institute / Flickr
wired.com - by Primavera De Filippi - January 2, 2014
The internet is weak, yet we keep ignoring this fact. So we see the same thing over and over again, whether it’s because of natural disasters like hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, wars like Syria and Bosnia, deliberate attempts by the government to shut down the internet (most recently in Egypt and Iran), or NSA surveillance.
After Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, several towns were cut off from humanitarian relief because delivering that aid depends on having a reliable communication network. In a country where over 90 percent of the population has access to mobile phones, the implementation of an emergency “mesh” network could have saved lives.
Watch how geothermal heat pumps heat and cool buildings by concentrating the naturally existing heat contained within the earth -- a clean, reliable, and renewable source of energy.
energy.gov - June 24, 2012
Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs), sometimes referred to as GeoExchange, earth-coupled, ground-source, or water-source heat pumps, have been in use since the late 1940s. They use the constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature. This allows the system to reach fairly high efficiencies (300% to 600%) on the coldest winter nights, compared to 175% to 250% for air-source heat pumps on cool days.
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