Senate (belated) Earth Day agenda
Presented by Con Edison
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Good morning and welcome to the Monday edition of the New York & New Jersey Energy newsletter. We ll take a look at the week ahead and look back at what you may have missed.
North Country Public Radio
While many environmental groups cheer the policy, some oppose what they call a costly and unnecessary investment in nuclear power.
(Provided photo â David Sommerstein / North Country Public Radio) In 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo set one of the country’s most ambitious green energy goals when he signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. “Climate change is an undeniable scientific fact, period. To deny climate change is to deny reality,” Cuomo said at the signing ceremony. The law created a Climate Action Council to steer policy and help meet the state’s goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2040. How that goal will be reached remains an open question.
On the eve of the 51st anniversary of the first Earth Day, the north country was blanketed by fresh icy flakes.
Just beginning to awaken, spring blooms have been pushed into sleep again, with growers battening the hatches to protect the seasonâs young crops.
Weather rocks would tell you the pandemic year â now rolling into a 14th month â saw rain, sun, snow, wind and fire. A dry summer and frigid winter punctuated 2020, an American chapter that brimmed with environmental degradation, conservation success, policy plays and deeply emotional connections to the blue planet.
Inaugurated in April 1970 and marked by Congressâ creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December that year, Earth Day is a national celebration, a reckoning, a call to action. Environmental groups often note: âEvery day is Earth Day.â
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In the late 19th century, Newburgh in the Hudson Valley represented the bleeding edge of industrial technology. Streams powering wool, gunpowder, flour and saw mills emptied into the Hudson River, where steamships carried industrial cargo. Thomas Edison in 1884 selected Newburgh to host one of the world’s first central power stations, making it the second electrified municipality in the United States after lower Manhattan.
A century later, Newburgh’s economic leadership had stalled, as manufacturers relocated and the river lost shipping traffic to trucking. The city of 28,000 now has the highest poverty rate downstate, and Newburgh’s mostly Latino and Black population struggles with high crime, water safety crises and rates of asthma more than twice the statewide average.
Commentary: Nuclear power must be part of New York s plan timesunion.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesunion.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.