In the week when President Joe Biden brought the US back into the fight against climate change, now is a great time for Switched ON members to celebrate the boundless ingenuity and energy of communities and municipalities right across America as they work together to improve their environments.
From afar it’s easy to forget the vastness and complexity of the United States, and that was all the more so when there was such a preoccupation on the Trump White House.
While the world metaphorically fried with near year-on-year record temperatures – and Australia literally burned – ‘Trumpy’ proved himself the best friend the fossil-fuel industry could buy.
But what was true for POTUS and his buddies was far from true for everyone in the land of the free and home of the brave.
Here’s a story from The Big Apple to prove the point. Who would have thought that New York Harbour was once home to one of the world’s great oyster reserves?
In this video from the CNN Climate Crisis series, we learn that locally produced oysters were once a culinary mainstay of the city’s food culture.
But sadly, years of over-exploitation, together with pollution, has devastated the New York Harbour oyster population and rendered them inedible and in critical decline.
Super Storm Sandy in 2012 proved the catalyst for radical change after its destructive power left 233 people dead and a damages bill of nearly US$70 billion across its path.
Scientist believe climate change will make future hurricanes more powerful, so one solution to protect New York is the Living Breakwaters Program, and essential to that project is the reinstatement of the oyster reefs.
The plan is to re-populate New York Harbour with a billion oysters. Apart from their role in the Living Breakwater, oysters are also hugely efficient water filters and are helping to clean one of the world’s most busy waterways.
At Switched ON Living, we love hearing about a change of mindset and so it was music to our ears when we heard project manager Kate Orff say the Living Breakwaters Program will help New Yorkers to re-imagine and re-orientate their city back to roots as a coastal community that embraces its waterfront, rather than build defences against.
We believe Frank Sinatra would be proud – start spreading the news, if you can change mindsets in New York, you can change them anywhere. It’s the port which made New York great, and it’s Gotham’s restored oyster reefs which will help to make New York City Even More Great Again.
