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February 27, 2014 by Matt Surrusco

At AdaptNY Climate Resilience Panel, Experts Call For Both Local and Regional Solutions

Experts discuss climate risks and resilience, emphasizing the need for local and regional responses, during a Feb. 22 panel at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Photo by Eddie Vega.

Experts discuss climate risks and resilience, emphasizing the need for local and regional responses, during a Feb. 22 panel at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Photo by Eddie Vega.

Emerging climate risks require not only local solutions, but also wider, regional responses, according to climate experts participating in a recent panel discussion on climate resilience.

In the post-Superstorm Sandy era, community-level solutions are necessary to defend New York neighborhoods against extreme weather, rising sea levels, and storm surges, said New York City Councilmember Mark Treyger, speaking on the Feb. 22 panel hosted by AdaptNY, the Online News Association, and the Center for Community and Ethnic Media.

“We have to really build smarter,” said Treyger, who represents Coney Island and other parts of south Brooklyn. He stressed local challenges, especially Sandy’s impact on public housing residents, some living in buildings still relying on temporary boilers, as well as the need for city government action. But Treyger and other members of the panel added that larger-scale solutions are also needed to help New York City and the metropolitan area become more resilient to extreme weather, like Sandy, which devastated New York, New Jersey and the region in October 2012.

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February 26, 2014 by Nareshnee Pillay

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Councilman Treyger Questions City Response to Sandy

Lower Brooklynites are still struggling to find normalcy more than a year post-Sandy. Just one example: Continued temporary boiler breaks are said to be leaving hundreds of residents, many of them immigrants, helpless and cold this winter.

But now the community’s representative on the City Council is pressing hard to do something about it. “There are a lot of questions that have been unanswered in regards to the Sandy recovery,” AdaptNY was told by Councilman Mark Treyger (D-47), who represents Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Gravesend and Sea Gate. “I believe we have to do our part, at the local level, to have better coordination, and to provide the public with as much information as possible.”

Treyger, who was recently named chair of a new City Council Committee on Recovery and Resiliency, has something in the works he hopes will shed light on the problems. On Thursday, Feb. 27, he will chair the first ever City Council meeting in Coney Island, where his committee will look at provisional heating systems, as well as discuss where government relief funding has gone, and how the area can prepare for future disasters.

Councilman Treyger spoke with AdaptNY about his concerns and plans for the future. Watch our exclusive interview here.

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February 25, 2014 by A. Adam Glenn

WNYC: De Blasio’s New Headache – Sandy Recovery

 

WNYC Editor Matthew Schuerman discusses Build it Back, New York City’s troubled Sandy recovery program. Listen via the audio player above, or read text of the reporting. Plus, check out a report from the Alliance for a Just Rebuilding and Faith in New York showing that no homes in the city had been repaired with money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development so far.

 

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February 21, 2014 by Meral Agish

An Introduction to Design Thinking

Design thinking, like that used in the AdaptNY workshop on Feb. 22, may be an unfamiliar term but the process behind it will be familiar to many journalists. It’s a series of steps that takes an idea to a fully realized product, kind of like taking a story from a pitch to a fully reported, finished piece.

The process, as defined by Stanford University’s d.school, involves five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. They have a handy guide, the Bootcamp Bootleg, that explains their approach to design thinking and offers helpful tools for each step.

Five step process of design thinking by Stanford University’s d.school (Image: d.school / Stanford University)

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February 15, 2014 by By Lu Wu

Hidden Harm: Combating the Mental Health Effects of Sandy

Aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Rockaways, NY, Dec. 14, 2012.

Aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Rockaways, NY, Dec. 14, 2012. – Creative Commons Photo by Tom Duggan (pepperinmyteeth)

For some Sandy victims, the ordeal is far from over even a year later, if they are among those suffering long-lasting mental health problems in the wake of the superstorm.

A Gallup poll taken shortly after Sandy showed a significant increase in cases of depression in those areas hit hardest by the storm. Among the most affected zip codes, the diagnosis of depression had gone up 25 percent compared to before Sandy.

While the longer-term extent of the psychological damage is less clear, lessons learned from previous natural disasters can help in response to Sandy-related psychiatric issues.

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February 6, 2014 by A. Adam Glenn

Workshop: Better Digital Storytelling Through Design Thinking For the Post-Sandy Era

AdaptNY is partnering with the Online News Association and the Center for Community and Ethnic Media to offer an all-day workshop Feb. 22, aiming to use the innovative techniques of design thinking to help media and communities improve how they tell stories and share information about climate resilience.

The workshop will get off the ground with a power panel of top-flight climate experts from the worlds of journalism, science, government and environmental advocacy, addressing the problems of adapting to the impacts of climate change and extreme weather.

Then throughout the day, usability experts and coaches, including from pioneering media firm Digital First, will guide participants through a process of understanding what their users need, brainstorming solutions and sharing them for feedback from other workshop attendees.

The conference is hosted by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in mid-town Manhattan, and the $10 registration fee will include meals and a closing happy hour.

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER NOW!

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February 3, 2014 by A. Adam Glenn

WNYC: Fuzzy Math – How Christie Divvied Up Sandy Mitigation Money

A public radio investigation has found irregularities in how New Jersey Sandy-related state grants were allocated to communities, including Hoboken, which has been the center of accusations about political retribution using Sandy aid. Listen to the WNYC clip below, or read the full story on WNYC or partner NJ Spotlight. And from the governor’s office, here’s a list of what each muncipality received.

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January 7, 2014 by A. Adam Glenn

CURATION: Cuomo, Biden on Sandy Infrastructure Investment

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Vice President Joe Biden spoke at a press conference in Albany Jan. 7 about infrastucture investment in the wake of Sandy. Below, view the best of the coverage in our Storify curation, plus view video of the full press conference.


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