By Alex Ross
One of the things that makes South Midwood Pollinators unique is that our love of gardening is deeply wedded to our commitment to enhance biodiversity. In the best environmental tradition, we strive to think globally as we act locally because we understand that, in the words of Barry Commoner, everything is connected.
Last week I had an opportunity to act locally when I was contacted by the local environmental group 350Brooklyn, whose mission is to combat climate change. 350Brooklyn is working to pass two important pieces of legislation:
· NEW YORK HEAT ACT to speed New York’s green transition by slashing fossil fuel use in buildings - the state’s largest source of climate-warming pollution; and
· CLIMATE CHANGE SUPERFUND ACT to raise billions of dollars from corporate polluters to clean up their toxic pollution, improve New York’s electric grid, and improve public health across the state.
350Brooklyn reached out to me was because I am a constituent of Assembly member’s Rodneyse Bichotte Hermalyn district. As Chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, the assembly member has unique clout in Albany. And as her constituents, we South Midwood residents and Pollinators can more easily make our voice heard to her and her staff.
Nine of us from 350 met with two of Bichotte Hermalyn’s staffers, Jarryd Rauch and Tyesha Allen, via Zoom on Friday, March 8. We effectively linked these two bills to public health, a pet issue for Bichotte Hermalyn, and got a commitment from her staffers that she would reach out to House Speaker Carl Heastie (one of Albany’s proverbial “three men in a room”) and push him to make the bills a budget priority.
CALL TO ACTION: The ultimate fate of the bills remains to be seen, but I encourage any Pollinators who are interested in helping with these issues to contact Molly Ornati (molly.ornati@gmail.com), who is a co-founder of 350Brooklyn and working on climate legislation, or me at alexross55@hotmail.com. I will keep your contact information private and reach out to you as the need arises.
It is critical to build relationships with our elected officials, get our environmental concerns on their radars and, hopefully, included in their legislative priorities. It is an action step toward improving our environment.
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