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Student reflection on Student Network Event, "Calling All Conservationists" an online information session about the benefits and necessity of youth involvement in your town's conservation committee. February 2023 As those of you familiar with FCWC know, the Student Network represents high school and college students from Westchester County dedicated to promoting conservation and sustainability across the county. The group’s latest initiative is to increase student participation on the municipal Conservation Advisory Committees (CACs) county-wide. To further this initiative, the Student Network organized, on October 13, 2022, a webinar to brief local officials and students about the benefits of student representation, for both the municipality and the students. The webinar also was intended to bring students together to learn about other opportunities for climate change in their hometowns. Speakers Alexis Friedman, a high school senior from Rye serving on the CAC, and Riley Hester, a high school senior from Pound Ridge who also serves on the local CAC, spoke of their very positive experiences working on these committees. As they pointed out, students are a crucial component of the climate change movement and will be responsible in upcoming years for leading the fight against global warming. Learning how decisions are made, through their CAC participation, has been invaluable, Friedman and Hester agreed; they look forward to taking these skills with them to college and beyond. That reason alone, they thought, was a great motivation for student activism. Currently, of the 48 county municipalities, 8 have junior CAC members, including Ardsley, Greenburgh, New Castle, Pelham, Pound Ridge, Rye, and Tuckahoe. Mamaroneck plans to propose a junior member position to its Town Supervisor while Peekskill and Pleasantville have student volunteers, as opposed to appointed junior members, on their CACs. However, adding a junior member younger than 16 to a CAC may require a regulatory change since the State General Municipal Law now specifies that junior CAC members should be “between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one.” The webinar featured two other speakers: the President of the New York State Association of Conservation Commissions gave a short presentation and Frances Wills, a representative of the State Regents Board, spoke about the Seal of Civic Readiness. According to the New York Department of Education, this “seal” is formal recognition that a student has achieved a high level of proficiency in civic knowledge, civic skills, civic mindset, and civic experiences. Participating on a CAC certainly fits into these criteria. In the short term, as the Student Network moves forward, it wants to continue efforts to broaden student representation on local CACs. It also plans to identify all junior CAC members across the county and invite them to join the group. We are so proud of our Student Network and impressed with their level of environmental commitment. We will keep you posted on the progress of these active and dedicated students. Watch the full program here:

January 2023 On Sunday, January 22, 2023, FCWC shook off the post-holiday blues and began the New Year by forging a new partnership with SUNY Purchase and enjoying an excellent concert by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. To begin the afternoon, we shared a fantastic cheese tray (contributed by Second Mouse Cheese Shop in Pleasantville) and prosecco (purchased at Rye Brook Wine & Spirit Shop in Rye Brook) while we socialized with SUNY staff and administrators, including Milly Pena, the President of SUNY Purchase,. After an opportunity for the musicians to explain the music, answer questions and prepare the audience for the afternoon’s program, it was off to the concert itself. For those who haven’t been to the Performing Arts Center on campus, the acoustics are extraordinary – Orpheus recorded its latest album here! These Grammy-winning musicians, based in New York City, have worked together for over 50 years. It is known for its collaborative leadership style; for its entire history, the society has played without a conductor, managing to deliver complex music to great effect and success. The program consisted of three pieces. First was a work, commissioned by Orpheus for its 50th anniversary, by a rising young composer, Hanna Benn, entitled View(Un)titled. Similar in theme to the last piece on the program (Pictures at an Exhibition), this new work was inspired by art at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York City. The second piece, Prokoviev’s Sonata in F Minor the Violin, Strings and Percussion (Op. 80) as arranged by Andrei Pushkarev, featured the talented French violinist, Renaud Capucon. The piece just might be my favorite way to hear strings paired with a wide range of percussion instruments. The last piece, a new arrangement by Jannina Norpoth of the Mussorgsky classic, brought new drama to a familiar theme. The afternoon was an amazing presentation of virtuosity by the musicians on stage, individually and collectively. The concert was wonderful and enthusiastically received by the entire audience. FCWC looks forward to building upon this successful collaboration with SUNY Purchase. We can learn from them: for example, the arts center has eliminated printed programs and instead is providing concert goers with a QR code to scan and access program information, a great way to go green. We hope that SUNY Purchase can benefit from our long-standing roots in the environmental community as they build their own sustainable future. Our thanks to Ian Driver, Executive Director of the Performing Arts Center, for a warm embrace as we all seek new opportunities for future shared programs.

Upcoming programming for FCWC includes three-part series on the "past, present, and future" of the Bronx River in White Plains, NY. February 2023 Photo Credit: Ben Brown "Documenting the Reservation’s Environmental Beauty" FCWC is very pleased to announce that we have received a small grant to carry out a series of public education/outreach events focusing on the Bronx River in White Plains. Tentatively scheduled for Spring 2023, the series is intended to educate residents about this often-overlooked natural resource and encourage them to be better stewards of the Bronx River. The three programs will cover the river’s history (including the role of early indigenous people and the river’s significance during the Revolutionary War), the river’s ecology/environment (including a guided walk), and an overview of the municipal land use planning and development, emphasizing how local citizens can impact these decisions. Funds for the series resulted from a local citizen's lawsuit aimed at protecting the Bronx River from the impact of real estate development. Planning for this series includes FCWC staff, Executive Board members, and new FCWC member, Benjamin Brown. Brown is a White Plains resident and practicing lawyer who frequently advocates for environmental causes before the City's Common Council. For him, citizen participation is key to protecting local environmental resources and making sure that local governments explicitly include environmental factors in their decisionmaking, as intended by the New York Environmental Quality Act of 1975. As Brown stated, "Given the amount of development pressure the City is facing, if we don't start thinking seriously about the role of the Bronx River and how to be good stewards of it, soon it will be too late.” We will share specifics of this upcoming series as they are finalized. We hope that as many of you as possible can join what promises to be fascinating and educational events.

February 2023 Tracy wearing her awesome MICROspikes engaging in some backcountry hiking - one of her favorite activities! Artist & Environmentalist Tracy Stora comes from a successful creative career in publishing and marketing, having worked at such publications as Elle, Family Life, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Business Week, Consumer Reports and Spy Magazine. Tracy raised a family in New York City and Rye NY—while maintaining her career and advocating for the environment. She has served on the Conservation Commission Advisory Council in Rye for 10 years and was appointed Chair of the council when former FCWC president, Carolyn Cunningham, retired as Chair. In her role as CC/AC Chair, Tracy has been instrumental in promoting environmental conservation and sustainability in Westchester County. Tracy holds a BFA from Syracuse University. She lives in Rye with her husband and her 13-month-old dog Penny. She enjoys hiking, biking, pickleball, sailing, and backcountry skiing. Connect with Tracy To connect with Tracy about programs or your environmental questions, shoot her an email! Email Here

There have been many arguments about the science behind environmental sustainability, but over the past year, in the middle of a global pandemic and social isolation, we have seen better air and water quality, and less noise pollution, which has reinvigorated “nature." Being forced into reducing our carbon imprint made a big difference. More animals ventured outside of their homes, and even fish were spotted in previously polluted canals in Amsterdam. This is because we had to stay home, and not make as big of a carbon imprint on the environment. If even the smallest amount of time staying at home has affected the environment in such a positive way, then imagine what all we could do if we all put a continuous effort to save our planet. This is why educating ourselves and future generations is paramount to helping rebalance inventions of humankind to taking care of our planet. There is a bill on the senate floor that is all about environmental science education. It's called S3299, but what exactly is it and what does it do? It's a bill students and senate members have tried to advocate for, to include environmental science in curriculums in every school throughout New York State. Its goal is to teach students not only the basics of environmental science but also how to conserve our planet and preserve the effects of the depletion of the ozone layer and climate change. Educators and students have been advocating for this bill for the past thirteen years, since 2008. They would like it not only to be part of the science curriculum, but to be taught holistically as well, that is to intertwine it with other subjects. This point was made through a webinar discussion about the bill S3299, with students, teachers, and senators. To quote from the webinar, “The climate crisis threatens all New Yorkers, especially our students. Currently, there is no specific environmental science requirement for students to graduate high school in New York State. This means that many students don't experience an environmental science course beyond earth science or biology-let alone in intersectional sustainability-and may leave high school without any in depth knowledge of the ever more present climate crisis or how to combat it. The New York State Environmental Sustainability Education Act aims to change this''. (The Link to the webinar is here) Part 2 of the blog will further discuss: Who is responsible for coming up with the state wide curriculums and how do they determine what is important or what factors go into making the curriculum? And what/who are the regents? But until then…. Be mindful of the planet! -Riddha V. Iyengar

Above is a mapping application that displays VIIRS/DMSP/World Atlas overlays and the user measurements overlay over Microsoft Bing base layers (road and hybrid Bing maps). When the Northridge earthquake cut power in Los Angeles in January 1994, the Griffith Observatory received phone calls from concerned citizens asking about a mysterious cloud overhead that they had never seen before. The Milky Way, our galaxy, had probably not been visible from downtown LA for half a century. It’s estimated that more than two-thirds of the people in the world cannot see the Milky Way from their homes. We light up our environment for safety, to allow us to move about at night, and to decorate our homes and businesses. But this light is also obliterating the stars–a source of inspiration and information for diverse cultures across the centuries. Light pollution doesn’t just wash out the glories of the night sky and frustrate amateur astronomers. It wastes energy and money. Poor lighting design creates glare that actually makes it difficult to see well at night. Misdirected light crosses property lines and intrudes into homes, disturbing sleep. Hundreds of studies have documented the adverse effects of light pollution on the environment. It has devastating impact on some animal behaviors. More than 1,600 investigations into its impact on human health have been published. It may be a carcinogen. The American Medical Association is sufficiently concerned to have voted to “support light pollution reduction efforts and glare reduction efforts” and to “support efforts to ensure all future streetlights be of a fully shielded design or similar non-glare design to improve the safety of our roadways.” Above is an updated light pollution map of lower New York State. Municipalities all over the United States, including towns in Westchester, are replacing their older streetlights with brighter LED streetlamps. The main reason is economic: LED streetlamps use much less power and have very long lives, reducing costs. New York City is replacing a quarter of a million street lamps and each year expects to save $6 million in energy costs and $8 million in maintenance. Another positive factor is that these fixtures are better shielded than the old “cobra head” sodium vapor lamps, projecting more of the light where it’s needed and not uselessly up to the sky. However, while shielding is better than before, it’s not as good as it could be. New York City’s LED streetlamps still project 5% of the light upward and up to 20% into the “glare zone” at or above 80 degrees. Many municipalities are installing similar “semi-cutoff” street lamps. In addition, most of the fixtures installed to date use LED’s that emit light that is enriched in the blue part of the spectrum. Blue-rich LEDs produce three times as much skyglow as the older lights because blue light scatters much more efficiently than light in the “warmer” (yellow) part of the spectrum, a phenomenon known as “Rayleigh scattering.” The daytime sky is blue because our atmosphere scatters blue light in the sun’s spectrum more than other colors. Blue-rich light also causes more glare, poses greater difficulties for older eyes, has more damaging ecological impacts, and more readily disrupts human circadian rhythms. LED’s that have a warmer color temperature and produce nearly the same amount of light per watt consumed as blue-rich LEDs are now available for outdoor use. We may have to wait until the end of the 15-year life span of new LED street lamps to try to get them replaced with warmer lamps. If your town is still in the process of acquiring and installing LED street lamps, ask it to use the warmer, more ecologically and medically friendly bulbs in fully-shielded fixtures. A source of light pollution you can control is your own home. Replace decorative lighting that throws light upwards where it’s not needed with fixtures that direct the light downward. Use warm LED bulbs. Turn off outside lights when they’re not needed. Ask your neighbors and businesses you frequent to do the same. For more information, check out http://www.darksky.org, the web site of the International Dark-Sky Association. Resources for further reading: “Confirmed: Night Lights Drive Pollinators Away From Plants,” The Atlantic, August 7, 2017 “New York’s LED Streetlights: A Crime Deterrent to Some, a Nuisance to Others,” The New York Times, July 11, 2016 “The City Dark,” PBS, July 5, 2012 Lawrence L. Faltz MD, President, Westchester Amateur Astronomers Dr. Faltz is a life-long amateur astronomer. He was Chief Medical Officer of Phelps Memorial Hospital Center from 1994 to 2017 and is Clinical Professor of Medicine at New York Medical College.