Translation from English

Friday, January 31, 2014

Me and the NRDC

Above: Poster I designed as a beginning Design Student at City Tech in Brooklyn for a competition sponsored by the NRDC even though I knew, with my limited skills, that I had no chance of winning ( I was so interested in the project that I found out a lot more about Climate Change--which people still mostly referred to as global warming, saw the movie " An Inconvenient Truth" and got a student membership to the NRDC-- allowing me to see the winning entries later at their offices in New York.

Hurricane Sandy showed us how changing weather patterns alone could flood NYC's subway system ( still not fully repaired) and menace all low lying coastal areas.

Without getting more into that topic, here is the story of the NRDC:

Natural Resources Defense Council

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Natural Resources Defense Council
Natural Resources Defense Council logo.svg
Founded 1970
Headquarters
Area served United States
Focus(es) Environmentalism
Method(s) Litigation, education, advocacy
Revenue $119.1 million USD (2011)[1]
Employees Approx. 350[2]
Members 1.3 million[3]
Motto "The Earth's Best Defense"
Website nrdc.org
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a New York City-based, non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing. Founded in 1970, NRDC today has 1.4 million members and online activists nationwide and a staff of more than 400 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts.
Worth magazine has named NRDC one of America's 100 best charities,[3] Charity Navigator has given NRDC four out of four stars as of 2007,[4] and the Wise Giving Alliance of the Better Business Bureau reports that NRDC meets its highest standards for accountability and use of donor funds.[5] The New York Times calls NRDC "One of the nation's most powerful environmental groups." The National Journal says NRDC is "A credible and forceful advocate for stringent environmental protection."

About

The NRDC was co-founded in 1970 by John Adams, Richard Ayres, John Bryson, Edward Strohbehn, and Gus Speth, together with a board of scientists and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement.[5] The organization has a broad agenda of activities and seeks sustainable policies from federal, state and local government and industrial corporations. It works with federal and state environmental and other agencies, the Congress and state legislatures, and the courts to reduce global warming, limit pollution, protect the stratosphere, promote energy efficiency, conserve natural resources and the natural and built environment, and increase the sustainability of the manufacture of consumer goods. NRDC participates in litigation in federal and state courts to assure the faithful implementation and enforcement of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and many other federal and state laws protecting the environment. The Council also supports an environmental science program that involves dozens of staff and associated scientists; this includes a major program which seeks transformation of manufacturing industries to more sustainable production. In addition, the organization devotes substantial resources to public education .

In 2001, NRDC launched the BioGems Initiative to mobilize concerned individuals in defense of exceptional and imperiled ecosystems. The initiative matches NRDC's legal and institutional expertise with the work of citizen activists.

It has issued a report on the health effects arising from the September 11, 2001 attacks.[6]
NRDC was also one of the only major national environmental organisations to become and stay involved with community activists on the ground in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.[7]
NRDC has also published a number of studies on nuclear weapon stockpiles around the world, both as monographs and as individual studies in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
In December 2006, Green Day and NRDC jointly launched a website to raise awareness on the U.S.'s petroleum dependence.[8][9] The NRDC takes the position that new nuclear power plants are not a solution for America's energy needs, or for addressing global warming.[10]

Programs

NRDC runs a number of environmental programs:[11]
  • The Climate and Clean Air Program focuses on clean air, global warming, transportation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric-industry restructuring. This includes the Renewable Energy and Defense Database project with the Pentagon.[12]
  • The Health Program works on issues involving drinking water, chemical harm to the environment, and other environmental health threats with the goal of reducing the amount of toxins released into the environment.
  • The International Program works worldwide on rainforests, biodiversity, habitat preservation, oceans, marine life, nuclear weapons and global warming, often in conjunction with other programs.
  • The Land Program works on issues related to national forests, parks, other public lands, and private forest lands, and works to reduce consumption of wood products.
  • The Nuclear Program analyzes developments on a variety of nuclear weapon issues.
  • The Urban Program focuses on environmental issues in urban centers and surrounding areas. Issues include air and water quality, garbage and recycling, transportation, sprawl, and environmental justice.
  • The Water and Oceans Program works on issues related to the nation's water quality, fish populations, wetlands and oceans. It also operates regional initiatives such as the Everglades, San Francisco Bay, the San Joaquin River, the Channel Islands of California, and the New York/New Jersey Harbor-Bight.
  • The Latino Outreach Program or La Onda Verde de NRDC works to inform and involve Spanish-speaking Latinos in the environmental issues on which NRDC works. [13]
  • In July 2008, the NRDC and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. launched a direct mail campaign to encourage citizens to voice opposition to Shell Oil's exploration for oil off the Alaska coast.

OnEarth Magazine

OnEarth magazine is a quarterly publication of the NRDC that looks at environmental challenges from a variety of perspectives. The magazine was founded in 1979 as The Amicus Journal.[14] As Amicus, the magazine won the George Polk Award in 1983 for special interest reporting.[15]

Directors

Frances Beinecke is the current President. Peter Lehner is the Executive Director. On June 14, 2010, Beinecke was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[16]

Issues

NRDC's priorities include:

Effect on administrative law

The NRDC has been involved in some of the most important Supreme Court cases interpreting United States administrative law.

See also

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered