Cuomo must Act to turn Climate Promises into Enforceable Policies

State Capitol Protest March - Cuomo: Walk the Talk on Climate!

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Cuomo talks big about climate change. 

Now it’s time for New York to pass actual policies.

By Greta Moran | Grist | Dec 31, 2018

If you want to hear some fiery climate promises, just listen to a recent speech by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. In the span of a couple minutes, he blasted the federal government’s inaction on climate change, vowed to “leave this planet better than we found it,” and promised to make New York’s electricity 100 percent carbon-neutral by 2040 — and eventually, completely eliminate the state’s carbon footprint.

Despite these strong words, some aren’t holding their breath until they see concrete steps from Cuomo (after all, this is the same governor who just in May headlined a gala funded by oil companies.) “It’s only a statement, and that’s not strong enough,” says Patrick Houston, an organizer with New York Communities for Change. “We urgently need bold climate goals to be written into the law.”

New York state has its best chance in years to pass progressive climate legislation in 2019, when Democrats will take control of the state Senate for the first time in a decade. (They already have a majority in the state House.) The midterm elections positioned many states to take bolder action, ushering climate champions to governorships and state legislatures in Colorado, Nevada, and Maine.

It’s good timing, because the federal government led by President Trump is dismantling environmental policies that are more critical than ever. And if we don’t act soon, climate change will bring a future of food shortages, mass extinctions, and natural disasters like we’ve never seen, as the United Nations’ IPCC report laid out in October.

“The IPCC report is harrowing,” says Kevin Smiley, a professor of environmental sociology at the University of Buffalo. “This is a time when a few states or cities have the opportunity to make a big stamp.”

Cuomo hasn’t released the details of his climate proposal yet, so we’ll have to wait and see if his promises carry weight. In the meantime, it’s worth asking: What would an ideal state climate plan look like, anyway? And how can states make sure their pledges are more than empty promises? I spoke with climate organizers and policy experts about what the states — New York as well as the other 49 — need to do to meet the very real, ever-knocking demands of climate change.

Think beyond electricity

Electricity accounts for only 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in New York, according to the state’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory, last updated in 2015. That’s a sizable chunk, but to take on that other 70 percent, Cuomo’s plan would need to consider every sector of the economy. That means all sources of greenhouse gas emissions, including buildings, transportation, and all forms of infrastructure, says Ann Carlson, a UCLA law professor who focuses on climate change and policy.

States can work together on their emissions targets, like the coalition of Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states that agreed on regional transportation goals, and the other state-based coalition that has set shared caps on greenhouse gas emissions through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. “We have a lot of small states that collectively can make a big difference,“ Carlson says.

Put the people most affected by climate change first

“Across the state, we can see that there are communities that have existing inequalities that are exacerbated by climate change,” says Adrien Salazar, a lead organizer with New York Renews, a coalition of more than 100 climate and labor groups. “When think about putting our economy on a path to 100 percent renewable energy, we want to make sure that those communities are invested in.”

New York state’s current energy plan doesn’t include explicit protections for these communities. New York Renews has been working to change this and pass the Climate and Community Protection Act, which would put the state on the path to running solely on renewable energy. It requires 40 percent of clean energy projects to be in communities impacted by climate change. The act would also give those communities ownership over these projects and ensure fair labor standards are in place.

Make it a law, not a suggestion

Climate Bill addresses Justice for Communities and Workers

Climate protection bill would hit renewable goal

In a recent Another Voice column (“Energy policies can be pro-business, pro-environment”), the authors gets things half right.

The Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA), the focus of their article, is also pro-community and pro-working families! If enacted, the CCPA would commit New York State to a just transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

This transition would impact the entire economy, from energy generation to transportation to how we heat and cool our buildings. It would require that state agencies apply climate and equity filters to all decision making. This would ensure that no New Yorkers get left behind during the transition and that state government is accountable to climate goals.

The CCPA was perhaps the first climate bill in the country to take justice for communities and workers seriously. It acknowledges the disparate impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities and would support implementation of community-based climate solutions. The bill would redirect 40 percent of existing state climate and clean energy funding to vulnerable communities to enhance climate resiliency and reduce energy poverty by opening up access to renewables and energy efficiency.

The CCPA would also set job standards for industries called into action by public sector investments so that workers and their families can thrive as our economy transitions.

Global consensus has been reached that we’re now living through an intensifying climate crisis. The CCPA is a commonsense response to this crisis and represents a transformative strategy for achieving a just transition for all New Yorkers.

Clarke Gocker

Buffalo

Published on 12.18.2018 at BuffaloNews.com

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To read the text of the Climate and Community Protection Act and see the bill's co-sponsorship in the NYS Senate, click here

Report: 100% Renewable Energy with Grid Stability is Possible and Economical

New Mark Z. Jacobson Study Draws A Roadmap To 100% Renewable Energy

February 8th, 2018 by Steve Hanley | CleanTechnica

Last August, Mark Jacobson, a renewable energy expert and senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University, was the leader of a study that identified how 139 countries around the world could obtain 100% of their energy from renewable sources by 2050. But that study got some pushback from people who questioned its assumptions. The naysayers said the study relied too heavily on energy storage solutions such as adding turbines to existing hydroelectric dams or storing excess energy in water, ice, and underground rocks.

A Response To Critics

Those criticisms stimulated another piece of work from Jacobson and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley and Aalborg University in Denmark. They are now back with a new report they believe thoroughly addresses the concerns brought up by skeptics of the first report. It begins by breaking those 139 counties into 20 regions and proposing energy storage solutions uniquely suited to each region.

Here’s how Jacobson summarized the work and the findings in an email to CleanTechnica:

The previous paper (in Joule) estimated the number of devices in each of 139 countries needed to provide power for each country in the annual average with 100% wind, water, and solar (WWS).

This new paper takes the next step, which is to divide the 139 countries into 20 world regions, then to see if the grid can stay stable in each region every 30 seconds for 5 years, and what is the resulting cost.

Utilities and policy makers alike are concerned that all the wind and solar we propose for the annual average numbers in the first paper won’t allow the grid to stay stable — that the lights will go out. This is the biggest barrier for the large-scale implementation of renewables.

This paper new shows that there is not only one solution but multiple solutions to the grid reliability problem — thus large penetrations of renewables can indeed keep the grid stable at low cost.

In addition, we find that the wind turbines needed would reduce global warming by ~3% and quickly. That is a new conclusion as well.

That sounds good. Will policy makers and utilities listen now? That’s the trillion-dollar question. Either way, it will certainly help fill out the CleanTechnica Answer Box.

“Based on these results, I can more confidently state that there is no technical or economic barrier to transitioning the entire world to 100 percent clean renewable energy with a stable electric grid at low cost,” Jacobson said for his university press team at Stanford.

“This solution would go a long way toward eliminating global warming and the 4–7 million air pollution-related deaths that occur worldwide each year, while also providing energy security. Our main result is that there are multiple solutions to the problem,” he says. “This is important because the greatest barrier to the large-scale implementation of clean renewable energy is people’s perception that it’s too hard to keep the lights on with random wind and solar output.”

Price Carbon Pollution to Fund a Transition to Clean Energy and Green Jobs

Opinion | LETTER | NY TIMES

A Need for a Pollution Tax

FEB. 5, 2018

To the Editor:

Re: “New Jersey Rejoins Regional Emissions Program It Quit Under Christie” (news article, Jan. 31):

When it comes to cutting carbon emissions, participating in a cap-and-trade program like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is important, but it’s only a partial solution. After all, the initiative covers emissions solely from power plants, whereas transportation produces the bulk of New York’s emissions. And so far, the initiative has not cut carbon at the speed science tells us is required to avert dangerous warming.

To do that, we’ll need a more comprehensive and aggressive form of pollution pricing. Your article highlights the laudable effort by Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington State to tax fossil fuel pollution directly and reinvest the revenue in renewable energy. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York will soon have the same opportunity.

NY Renews, a coalition of 140 environmental, labor and community groups across New York State, has been developing a proposal — likely to be introduced in Albany this year — to invest in job-creating clean energy and resiliency projects for coastal communities, using revenue from a polluter fee.

We need Governor Cuomo to be a real climate leader and embrace this common-sense idea, and lead the country in passing it into law.

LISA TYSON, MASSAPEQUA, N.Y.

The writer is director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, a member of NY Renews.

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State should follow New York City's lead taking on big oil

By Ashley Dawson, Commentary
January 28, 2018 | Times Union

“Put a price on carbon emissions so that Big Oil pays for the damage done to our health and environment, and so that we can bankroll a transition to clean energy and fair-labor green jobs.”

The Empire State Building was lit up bright green Jan. 10 to celebrate the precedent-setting announcement by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials: New York City is going to divest its $5 billion pension fund from fossil fuel-related investments. The city also has filed suit against the five biggest oil corporations to recover the billions of dollars in damage climate change has inflicted on the city.

It was a historic moment. The biggest city in the world's most powerful nation came out against the planet's richest, most powerful and most irresponsible industry. But it will take time for New York City's actions to have an impact. Divestment is not expected to happen until at least 2022. Big Oil has legions of lawyers who are experts in using the courts to obstruct justice and forestall reparations.

Although New York City's stand against Big Oil certainly sends a loud and emboldening message to the world, we need to be far more ambitious at the state level. We need state politicians to step up with concrete policy proposals that speed the transition away from fossil fuels. Otherwise, New York City's divestment could be nothing but hollow political posturing.

There certainly doesn't seem to be any meaningful coordination toward divestment on a state level. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last month that he is directing the state to begin looking into divesting its own substantial pension funds from fossil fuels. However, the following day, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, sole trustee of the state's $200 billion pension fund, responded that "there are no immediate plans to divest our energy holdings."

Last summer, as President Donald Trump announced his intention to back out of the Paris Agreement, the state Legislature considered the Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA), which mandated the elimination of fossil fuels from New York's economy within 35 years. The CCPA set fair-labor standards for all green projects and ensured that at least 40 percent of the benefits of transitioning to a zero-carbon economy would be directed to the disadvantaged New York communities that have contributed the least to climate change but will bear the brunt of it. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich called the CCPA "the most progressive climate equity policy we've seen."

But the CCPA died after state Sen. Tony Avella, D-Queens, declined to push Senate leaders to bring the bill to a vote. Avella is a member of the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), whose members all cosponsored the bill in the Senate in the first place. But the IDC caucuses with Republicans. Cuomo, who refused to make the CCPA a priority in his 2018 executive budget, has often sided with the IDC and has not pushed for them to rejoin the Democrats. Given the war declared on blue states by the Trump administration, the days of such antics by right-wing Democrats should be numbered in a place like New York.

It's time for the citizens of New York to show the rest of the country we can lead the way beyond fossil fuels. Put a price on carbon emissions so that Big Oil pays for the damage done to our health and environment, and so that we can bankroll a transition to clean energy and fair-labor green jobs. These corporations are not and never will be good citizens. They have known the facts about climate change for at least four decades and have done everything to obscure reality and sow public confusion. They have corroded our democracy and wrought havoc on our planet in the name of profits. As de Blasio put it, it's time that these corporations take responsibility for what they've done.

More Information:
Ashley Dawson is the Barron Visiting Professor at the Princeton Environmental Institute and professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island. He is the author of "Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change."

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NY Climate Solutions Summit -- October 28th in Rochester

 

What: NY Climate Solutions Summit

When: Saturday, October 28th, 8am-5pm

Where: The Harley School 

1981 Clover Street, Rochester [Map]

Keynote Speakers:

• Aaron Mair, Former Sierra Club President  

• Sandra Steingraber, Acclaimed Author & Ecologist  

The NY Climate Solutions Summit invites both new and experienced clean energy and climate organizers from across the state to gather and learn about case studies, experiences, projects, resources, and skills that will help their communities implement climate change solutions.

Presenters will share case studies on solar, wind, renewable heating, energy efficiency, transportation, environmental justice, and land use, in addition to workshops on movement building and technical skills. More details on the full program can be found here.

REGISTER HERE

RSVP and Share This Event on Facebook

We look forward to seeing you there! 

Planning team members:
Rochester People’s Climate Coalition, ACE NY, New Yorkers for Clean Power, Mothers Out Front, NY GEO, and the Alliance for a Green Economy.

Clean Air Coalition Campaign Featured in Slate Magazine

America’s Unfair Rules of the Road

How our transportation system discriminates against the most vulnerable.

By Corinne Ramey  - Slate Magazine 

Feb. 27 2015   At the easternmost edge of Lake Erie, where the lake meets the Niagara River, the Peace Bridge connects the United States and Canada. The two-thirds-of-a-mile-long bridge is one of the busiest border crossings between the two countries, connecting Canada’s Fort Erie with Buffalo, New York. Every day, an average of more than 15,000 vehicles, about 3,400 of which are trucks, drive over its steel girders.

In the shadow of the bridge sits a small neighborhood called the West Side, where the asthma rate is more than four times the national average, and residents report a host of other health issues. Advocates say the thousands of trucks driving overhead spew harmful diesel emissions and other particulates into their community. The pollutants hover in the air, are absorbed into buildings and houses, and find their way into the lungs of neighborhood residents, who are primarily people of color. “It’s constant asthma problems on the West Side,” says Sharon Tell, a local resident.

Idling trucks, with their engines running, are a regular presence on residential streets. “You see them park on our streets now, and sleeping overnight,” she says. “It’s so much, and we’re right there.” Tell is one of several residents who wore an air monitor funded through an Environmental Protection Agency grant. Her device collected more than 1.8 times the EPA recommended limit of particle pollutants. Tell could only wear the monitor for eight hours during a single day—the cost of conducting the air quality test is prohibitively expensive—but the result was deeply alarming. According to the EPA’s standards, the recommended limit on particle pollutants should not be “exceeded more than once per year on average over 3 years”.

Far from addressing the community’s concerns, plans are now afoot to expand the Peace Bridge. A proposed expansion of the bridge’s on- and off-ramps will further encroach into the neighborhood’s streets. Residents say their concerns about the constant truck traffic and its deleterious health consequences are being consistently ignored. “We have to move past the point where your zip code determines the quality of your life,” says Virginia Golden, a Buffalo resident and activist.

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Race and transportation have long been intertwined, whether it be federally funded highways that plowed through, or isolated, minority neighborhoods; Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; or segregated streetcars and trolleys. And there has been tremendous progress within the past century, particularly when Brown v. Board of Education struck down “separate but equal,” leading to the eventual desegregation of public transportation. In the 1990s, two pieces of legislation, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21^st Century, increased community involvement and awareness of civil rights issues in transportation planning. But discrimination, while certainly less overt, remains today.

Race and transportation have long been intertwined, from federally funded

highways that plowed through minority neighborhoods to Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Photo by Glenn Asakawa/Denver Post Staff

Sometimes, as in Buffalo’s case, communities feel cut out of the decision-making process. Those in power make decisions about transportation planning, resulting in ill-planned bus routes, transportation more likely to benefit those with cars than those without, and bleak environmental costs. In some cities, roads continue to pull apart neighborhoods, prioritizing commuters over communities. Nationally, the United States remains a country where many forms of transportation are effectively still segregated—whites and minorities ride different kinds of transportation, resulting in an unequal ability to reach jobs, education, and a better life.

Read more at Slate Magazine

Community Workshops - One Region Forward

Join Us for Scenario Planning Workshops Across the Region this November

Scenario planning will allow citizens to put those Regional Values into concrete terms and decide where to make investments and what strategies to pursue to get us closer to our shared Regional Vision and Values.

In a series of highly interactive, hands-on workshops, One Region Forward will ask participants to work together mapping their future approach to land use, development, housing and transportation for our region.

Register to attend a workshop
A Week of Workshops are scheduled for November 12-16th across the region.  Join us and tell us what your future Buffalo Niagara looks like!

• NOV 12th 6pm – 8pm: Amherst Central High School, Amherst

• NOV 13th 6pm – 8pm: City Honors School, Buffalo

• NOV 14th 6pm – 8pm: Parkdale Elementary School, East Aurora

• NOV 15th 6pm – 8pm: Starpoint Central High School, Pendleton

• NOV 16th 12pm – 2pm: Niagara Power Project Visitors Center, Lewiston

PUBLIC MEETINGS: WNY Regional Sustainability Plan

The Conversation Continues: The Western New York Regional Sustainability Planning Team is seeking your input on projects that will make our region more sustainable.

Five Western New York counties are working together to create a plan to build a more sustainable region.

Over the last several months, we’ve used your input to create integrated solutions for land use, energy, transportation, infrastructure and environmental practices to improve our quality of life now, and for generations to come. The draft Western New York Regional Sustainability Plan will soon be available at www.sustainable-ny.com.

Ultimately, the Plan will:

-	Plan for energy production and conservation, transportation, waste and water management, land use and livable communities, agriculture and forestry, economic development and open space;
-	Build upon Regional Economic Development planning efforts to integrate plans for economic prosperity with efforts to promote long-term sustainability;
-	Identify indicators to measure our progress, including GHG emissions and energy use, available natural resources and economic assets, liabilities and opportunities; and
-	Describe projects that may apply for implementation funding from various funding sources including the NYSERDA Cleaner Greener Communities program.

The planning team invites your ideas and feedback on implementation projects that can help meet the region’s goals for sustainability.

You may submit project ideas via: www.sustainable-ny.com/form or by attending the public meeting most convenient for you:

Monday, October 15, 2012, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Millennium Hotel, Cleveland Room
2040 Walden Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14225

Thursday, October 18, 2012, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Jamestown Community College, Weeks Reception Hall
525 Falconer Street, Jamestown, NY 14702

Tuesday, October 23, 2012, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Niagara County Community College, Humanities and Social Sciences Building, Room E142
3111 Saunders Settlement Road, Sanborn, NY 14132

Thursday, October 25, 2012, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Moonwinks Restaurant
9302 Jackson Hill Road, Cuba, NY 14727

The project is funded by a grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as a part of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Cleaner, Greener Communities Program. The participating counties are Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara. The planning team is led by Allegany County, with support from Southern Tier West Regional Planning and Development Board, Ecology and Environment, Inc., and the University at Buffalo Regional Institute.
To learn more about the project or to submit feedback via email, please visit www.sustainable-ny.com.
To view a copy of the Newspaper Ad please go here: Sustainable Fall Public Meeting Ad
For questions about the project or the upcoming public meetings, please contact Elizabeth Santacrose (Ecology and Environment) at (716) 684-8060.

Bike to Work Week: May 14-18 -- Party: May 19

By Henry Raess, Community Outreach Coordinator, GO Bike Buffalo

May is national Bike Month and GO Bike Buffalo (formerly Green Options) together with local sponsors are celebrating Bike to Work Week with a number of events.

We'll even help you get ready for your ride. Here is the schedule:

Fri, May 11th - Tune-up Night @ the Community Workshop (98 Colvin Ave.) 7 to 10pm

Sat, May 12th - Commuter Workshop - 1 to 4pm - For around the cost of a tank of gas our knowledgeable staff will help get you on your way to becoming a safe, well-informed, well-equipped bicycle commuter.

May 14-18th is Bike to Work Week

Mon, May 14th - Bicycle Breakfast at Sweetness 7 Cafes, 8 to 10am (Grant & Lafayette and Parkside & Russell)

Fri, May 18th - Bike to Work Day

Bicycle Breakfast at Cafe Taza, 7 to 10am (Elmwood & Allen)

Bike Away from Work Happy Hour - Cantina Loco, 5 to 8pm (Elmwood & Allen)

Sat, May 19th - GO Bike Launch Party

Essex Art Complex  (30 Essex St.)  7pm

Live music, DJs, $1 drafts of Rusty Chain beer all night and Bike Olympics!

$20 gets you a discounted one-year membership to GO Bike Buffalo and admission. FREE for current members of GO Bike/Green Options! 

For the scoop on what's going on with our organization and details on upcoming events, check out our monthly spot on The Good Neighborhood Blog: GO Buffalo! GO Bike! on the Good Neighborhood

GObikeBuffalo.org

Re: High-Speed Rail Corridor to Buffalo !

Bill Banas, director of the New Millennium Group of WNY, responded with thoughtful comments about the post entitled "High-Speed Rail Corridor to Buffalo !". He wrote:

Incredible, wonderful news, all of this... I'm starting to believe it will happen. This will be a fundamental shift in how people travel on this continent, and how capital and investment flow.

This could be something that sets Buffalo apart from other cities. Denver isn't getting it. Neither is Phoenix or Las Vegas. Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, and Miami have barely begun even thinking about the idea. It could be a game changer for Buffalo---but only if we are proactive enough to be one of the first to entirely embrace it.

First, Buffalo needs an intermodal transportation center (ITC). There have been plans for almost 15 years on the site of the Aud and the Donovan Building. Federal funding was allocated. It should have been built already, awaiting the high speed trains, but local leaders saw the future in more cars, more trucks, and more sprawl.

No matter---we can start again today an still be ahead of the pack. (In my opinion, the ITC should be downtown. When I get off of a train in the US, Canada, Europe or anywhere else in the world, I want to be in the city center.) The ITC should connect the high-speed inter city trains to our regional train system (including trains north to Niagara Falls and south to the ski areas).

Second, we need to build a new passenger train crossing over the Niagara River to Canada and on to Toronto.

Of course, a new passenger rail crossing to Canada and Toronto will have to be put in a location that already has access to rail infrastructure and rights-of-way. This is one of the reasons that many foresighted people in Buffalo have been fighting so hard for a better location for a new Peace Bridge.

The location of the existing Peace Bridge---it's lack of proximity to rail infrastructure and the lack of space in the vicinity---has stifled Buffalo's ability to take significant advantage of the massive amount of trade on our doorstep. Because of this, the vast majority of the trucks and people pass right on through without stopping.

Transportation, first by canal and then especially by rail, was what built Buffalo. It is our natural advantage---a confluence of Buffalo's location, topography, and geography---but only if we seize the opportunity now.

Does Buffalo want to be a doormat or a destination? Our actions regarding high-speed rail (and the Peace Bridge) will be the answer.

Bill Banas
The New Millennium Group of WNY

Environmental Row: Elmwood Arts Festival

Saturday, August 23, 10am-7pm
Sunday, August 24, 11am-5pm

ENVIRONMENTAL ROW
Go to Elmwood & Auburn [see map]

Learn about wind and solar power, preserving our waterways, re-using building materials, green transportation, and buying local food and goods. Solar panels supplied by Sunweaver and Solar Liberty will provide electricity for two stage events.

Click on an Artistic logo below to visit the exhibitor's Web site.

ERIE COUNTY Environment & Planning

BUFFALO Recycles
GREAT LAKES United

For further information visit Web pages at

ENVIRONMENTAL ROW
and
Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts

Green Cities: lessons from Curitiba Brazil

Innovations in transportation, recycling, affordable housing and other areas have made Curitiba one of the most livable cities in the world. Innovations and ingenuity are themes of a documentary film: A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil

The Western NY Climate Action Coalition is sponsoring a viewing of this informative and inspiring film (runtime: 52 minutes). Open discussion will follow. Admission and refreshments are free.

WHEN: Wednesday, May 21 at 7:00pm (refreshments at 6:30pm)
WHERE: Unitarian Universalist Church, Elmwood & West Ferry, Buffalo

For a poster to view and share with others, click here.
A film trailer is shown in the video below.

Buffalo: Big Potential to go Green

The Partnership for the Public Good, led by UB Law Professor Sam Magavern, has documented thoughtful recommendations for Greening the City of Buffalo. The Partnership acknowledges that Buffalo has big problems, but it foresees an even bigger potential for positive change. Recommendations cover wide-ranging topics including sustainability, economic development, transportation, water, green spaces, buildings, energy, food, recycling, tax incentives, and education. Documents prepared by the group are available on the Web and include an Executive Summary and Recommendations, and the full document, Greening Buffalo: What Local Governments Can Do. Additional documents are available at the group's Wiki Space, Partnership for the Public Good.

The Partnership recommends forming a coalition of interested groups with a unified annual platform for change and a set of sustainability targets and measures to hold the public sector accountable. For further information, e-mail Sam Magavern at the University at Buffalo Law School.