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Environmental Activism Since 1969

New York City Friends of Clearwater, Inc. is a chartered sloop club of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. We support Clearwater by teaching people to protect the Hudson River and related waterways and shores, including New York Harbor through education, advocacy, and celebration.

We teach in schools, at street fairs, in public forums and at festivals throughout N.Y.C. We educate NYCFC members and the public during our monthly meetings and the annual sail on the sloop Clearwater. We let people know about simple things that everyone can do to help.

Goals & Projects

NYCFC Promotes Awareness of:

  • Preserving Drinking Water Quality
  • Hydrofacking dangers
  • Cleaning up nearby waters and surrounding shores 
  • Protecting our harbor from pollutants and sewage
  • The hazard of having a nuclear power plant near NYC
  • Dangers of new power plants planned on the Husdon
  • Alternate energy sources ie. Solar & Wind power
  • Making homes and businesses environmentally friendly
  • The benefits of recycling and the processes used
  • Preserving environmental regulations for Manhattans' Hudson River Park and other parks throughout the region
  • Incineration vs. Recycling
  • Love of the Hudson River - try human powered boating
  • The beauty of sail power. Come on our annual members sail on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
  • How YOU can help make our waters, shores, and drinking water cleaner and safer for the benefit of all the life on the planet.

Join Us For Our Monthly Meeting Today

 

INVITE! NYCFC Monthly PotLuck /Live music SingAlong/ Teach In on Upcoming UN Rio + 20

 

Please join us at New York City Friends of Clearwater's monthly gathering May 18th 6:30pm- 9:30pm

 

Each month we cover topics of environmental interest. The gathering opens with song, the guest speakers and Q&A is next, then the rest of the evening we play music and sing!  Joel Landy will be performing with IP and fracking spoofs that are as insiteful as they are funny and hopefully Peter Pasco will be back! We welcome you to bring your voices, musical instruments.

 

Tonight is a Teach In on Rio+20. If you have never heard of it or just wanted to understand it better come tonight.. There are many different perspectives on the Rio+20 Earth Summit based on the viewpoints and interests of the various participants, which range from governmental representatives to civil society organizations that do not have standing to participate in the official meetings. Here is the Web site for Global Transitions 2012, which is providing innovative ways to think about sustainability:  globaltransition2012.org/about-us

 

Speakers: Prof Lisa DeCaprio of NYC Dept of Sustainability,

Ted Schulman of OWS Earth Summit Working Group, Catherine Skopic the UN task force on Rio+20

OccupyTheEarth.net  helps understand Rio+20

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-ashton/occupy-rio20-earth-summit_b_1520472.html

Reclaiming our Future:

1. Global participatory democracy - deeper public participation the UN and global governance.

2. Harmony with Nature - the People's Earth Summit

3. Introduction of new economic paradigms, eg, Sacred Economics, Resource Based Economy

4. Creation of more meaningful measurement to replace the GNP, example: the Happy Planet Index and the open data movement

5. New values, teach our children to think, example: TheHawnFoundation

 

At least three outcomes are expected from Rio+20"

1. The Rio Declaration

2. The Rio Recommendations

3. The Rio Actions Dialogue affects this - accepting input  to June 6th

 There is opportunity for impact. The more a specific topic shows up, the more weight it may have.

 

Please attend and bring your neighbor, friend, co-worker, family to enjoy an evening with like minded people, great food, great music, timely topics and lively discussions.

 

Location: DC 37, 140 Park Place/125 Barclay St. Rm9  Chambers St exit on the E train.(btwn Greenwich St.& WestSt.) *New Location!*  

 

New York City Friends of Clearwater is an environmental education organization that believes in celebration through music and community. We are a chartered sloop club of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the organization founded by folk musician and activist Pete Seeger 40+ years ago to clean up the Hudson River.

We hope you come to eat, sing and learn with us on

Friday, 5/18.

June 8th will be a report back on the May 17th NRC hearing on relicensing of Indian Point

“It’s as clear as water; we need to change!”


 


 

ReNEW New York

Solar in the City Discussion Series on Renewable Energy
What is New York’s Solar Energy Potential?

January 19th 6:15–9:30pm
The Community Church of New York
40 East 35th Street (Park & Madison)
Suggested $5-10 donation

What are the best methods to make solar power a reality in New York? Among the suggested models are: Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs); Net Metering; Feed-in Tariffs; and Community Choice Aggregation. How is the average New Yorker to make sense of these options?

Panel Discussion with:

Alison Kling, NYC Solar Map
Anthony Pereira, altPOWER, Inc.
John Siciliani, JFS Renewables LLC
Megan Matson, Lean Energy, US
Moderator: Ran Kohn, Cleantech Corridor

Series Co-Sponsors: The Environmental Task Force of The Congregation of Saint Saviour; The Green Sanctuary Committee of the Community Church of New York, UU; NYC Friends of Clearwater; Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter Gas Drilling Task Force; Tri-State Food Not Lawns/Neighborhood Energy Network; NY Climate Action Group; Sane Energy Project; United for Action; WBAI’s Eco-logic

Deadline for Comments to the DEC on SGEIS

Thanks to our friends at United for Action for compiling this information. http://unitedforaction.org/2011/10/13/dec-sgeis-comment-action-center/

Submit Comments to DEC on the SGEIS by 5:00 pm January 11, 2012! Postmarked by then or sent via DEC website.

We want the DEC to receive as many comments as possible on its Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement which paves the way for fracking in NY State. We’re hoping to drown DEC in comments. Please write comments using your own words. Form letters are less effective. Written comments will be accepted by DEC if received by DEC or postmarked by January 11, 2012 by two methods only. Written letter mailed to DEC or electronic submission using a web-based comment form available on DEC’s website http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/76838.html which we’ve been told is not that user friendly. Comments that are faxed, telephoned, or emailed to the DEC will not be accepted for the official record. We’re encouraging people to submit comments to DEC by regular mail because we’ve been told that letters are more effective.

Mail your comments to:

Attn: dSGEIS Comments
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-6510 

Mail a copy to the Governor, your State Senator, and your Assemblyperson to let them know how seriously voters are taking this and that we’re holding them accountable:
The Honorable Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

For more info: http://unitedforaction.org/2011/10/13/dec-sgeis-comment-action-center/

If you are submitting your comments to DEC electronically, please remember to print out a hard copy and send it to Cuomo, your State Senator and Assemblyperson.

Suggestions for Writing Comments

  • Keep your comments focused. Give a paragraph or two to each concern rather than discussing all of your concerns in one long paragraph.
  • If you can, make it clear what section and topic in the Draft you are referring to in your comments.
  • Every comment matters, but comments with concrete suggestions and with references to articles and papers, are especially useful.
  • For clarity, we encourage you to write separate comments on each topic. You may send in multiple letters to DEC covering different topics in each letter.
  • Sign your letter individually with your address. If you include a group affiliation, they could be grouped together and counted as one single comment.

New York City Friends of Clearwater, Inc. educates members and community on regional environmental issues that include protecting and preserving the Hudson River, NY Harbor, related waterways, drinking water, and life in and around these waters and shores.

Our Mission

No Fracking Way! Petition

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Our nation is on a perilous course, which, unless reversed quickly, poses a profound threat to public health and our environment. 
 
Legislation called the NAT GAS Act has been introduced in Congress that would, if passed and signed into law, accelerate the pace of this destructive path by shackling our country to a ruinous energy policy.

President's Report

Thank you 2011…Welcome 2012!

We have terrific plans for this year! Music, celebration, activism, sailing and kayaking! Our monthly live music potluck dinners with environmental speakers is always fun and inspiring. Many events are planned. Our yearly water festival with activist music and environmental speakers, Eco Tours around NYC, ecological field trips, Walk for the River annual fun&fund raising, and more music!

This past year NYCFC produced several great events and took part in the actions and events of many of our sister organizations.

We sailed on the Clearwater in our annual membership sail, we kayaked in the first annual Racing to Fight the Disasters by Kayak join us again this season, and watched as Bernice Silver 97 years young kayaked for the first time.

Some of us have been active in and energized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Environmental organizations we work with like Sane Energy Project, FrackActicon, UnitedForAction, Sierra Club-AtlanticChapter, Rainforest Relief, Shut Down Indian Point Now! all take part in OWS Eco groups.OWS energizes the movement and the various organizations add to the conversation and the action.

NYC Friends of Clearwater members have been active in planning and producing the Environmentalist Solidarity working group Climate Action Day teach-ins and work with Occupy Earth Summit working group.

There is nothing Pete Seeger likes better than seeing the youth take over the mantle of social and environmental activism!

Looking forward to a great 2012!

 

In Community

Donna Stein


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Summer is here…Yea! This is our season of greatest activity celebrating the environment with song! We use the energy of the season to bring you fun, educational events. We look forward to having all of you join in. Every weekend there seems to be a festival or workshop we either produce or participate in with other environmental groups.

Our monthly PotlLuck/SingAlong/Environmental Presentations have been an enormous success. Please put aside the 3rd Fridays of each month to share in the great energy. We usually have a full house of 40 people, give or take, lively discussions and always great music everyone participates in afterwards. Oh, and delicious food!

These meetings are about getting your attention! Threats to the environment are very real. By the time you start hearing about things on the news figure activists have been working on getting your attention for years. We are glad that the need to stop hydrofracking and the threat of Indian Point is starting to be known but NYCFC was bringing that info forward for years. Now we have to increase the level of conversation and empower ourselves to make a difference.

There are many terrific groups and speakers and we will strive to bring them to you. Recently, John McLoughlin a past President of the Beacon Sloop Club, co-coordinator of the Strawberry Festival, and crew on the Woody Guthrie gave us a totally enjoyable evening speaking on issues and interests. Keeping the conversation going is what it’s all about and John does that very well.  Paul Gallay, the Executive Director of Riverkeeper is always dynamic as he honored us with an evening of news and views of what Riverkeeper is doing to protect the environment. United for Action and Sane Energy Project came to give us an education on the most important issue of Fracking, the proposed dangerous pipeline in Greenwich Village and renewable energies.

Upcoming will be Rosemary Thomas and Gigi Friis from the Beacon Sloop Club talking about what their club is doing and how their organization has grown to be the largest club of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Paul Reale, a climate change expert will be speaking at our meeting this fall. He has a presentation of 100 slides and talking points. These will be don’t miss events.

 

There are always so many Earth Day opportunities to table and we participated in several, including the EcoFair at the Queens YMHA and the Kingsborough Earth Day. The highlight was being part of the Grand Central Station Earth Day with a booth and the exhibit Landscapes of Extraction about fracking. We joined a coalition of anti-fracking organizations including NYH2O, NDRC, Damascus Citizens, Catskill Mountainkeeper, CUISD, United for Action and EarthJustice. The annual Walk for the River fundraiser was successful and fun as ever, great day to share with friends..

Field trips are a new focus for us and we welcome suggestions for future events. The first field trip is June 23 to an innovative recycling waste management facility that keeps material out of the landfills and actually pays companies for their waste.

In keeping with the vision of legendary folk singer, environmentalist founder of Clearwater, Pete Seeger, to getting people to enjoy recreational boating, fall in love with the river and thus become environmentalists Bernice Silver is going to show us how to do it! 97 years young, Bernice is going kayaking for the first time! Saturday July 30th at 11am come down to the Downtown Boathouse at Pier 96 at 56th Street and the Hudson River.

And remember our Annual Membership Sail on the majestic sloop Clearwater, our namesake and symbol of the environment that we are still working to protect. That is Aug 7th and last year we had 86 people who wanted to go and only 50 spaces so please sign up and pay earlier. Call or email us at JLIB_HTML_CLOAKING .

If you are not yet a member or have yet to renew join now! Help us extend our reach to even more environmentally conscious people.

NYC Friends of Clearwater is a Chartered Sloop Club of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater organization. 

In Community,

Donna Stein