Last week, The New School participated in NYC Climate Week from Sept. 22-29. The New School’s climate week hub featured events, including the Urban Systems Lab’s “Exploring the potential of AI tools for climate risk and resilience” and Swissnex’s “Climate Ring: refashioning fashion.” This year also marked the 10th anniversary of the People’s Climate March.
Many of the events during this year’s climate week on campus were hosted by the Tishman Environment and Design Center. Tishman was founded in 2006 by Joel Towers, the current university president. Towers recently served as co-director of Tishman alongside Dr. Ana Baptista, who is now the sole director of the center following Towers’ new role as president.
“As I step into the role of Director of the Tishman Center, I am filled with excitement to continue advancing environmental and climate justice within our university community and with our EJ [Environmental Justice] movement partners and allies,” Baptista said on Tishman’s blog.
Since Dr. Baptista has taken leadership of the center, Tishman has hosted environmental justice events throughout September leading up to the official NYC Climate Week.
Climate Week at the Tishman Center took a different approach this year by highlighting the voices of frontline and marginalized community members affected by the climate crisis — as opposed to the climate tech developers and sustainable corporations the community heard from in previous years. “I know some of our events have a big tech component, but we generally do want to make sure that the events are focused on people because all of our work is focused on people,” Sustainability Engagement Director at Tishman, Mike Harrington said.
On Thursday, Sept. 26, Madhu Vaishnav, a sustainable fashion entrepreneur, spoke about slow fashion and creating opportunities for women in rural India at “Indigenous Threads: Weaving a Slow Fashion Future with Madhu Vaishnav.” Vaishnav grew up in Rajasthan, India, where she faced obstacles regarding her gender, darker skin tone, and her family’s limited income. After getting married and becoming a housewife, she struggled with financial autonomy until she had the opportunity to receive a graduate certificate for social welfare from UC Berkeley. In 2015, she founded Saheli Women, a brand that produces garments from upcycled and ethically produced fabrics, natural dyes, and reusable packaging.
“Nothing in this world is cheap,” Vaishnav said about the impacts of fast fashion, which her brand hopes to negate. Saheli Women is vocal about its labor principles and positions itself as a way to stop child labor and provide women with a stable income. “We definitely want more ladies in our village,” Vaishnav said. However, she continued that it is essential not only to train more women but also to expand the clientele so they have a sustainable work schedule. “When they come here it’s not that they finish the training and they go home and sit. [That] is not a sustainable development … We feel like our model, what we have created, is a very replicable model.”
Also on Thursday, “Grassroots Power: Perspectives on the Impact & Scale of Community-led Climate Solutions” was held in Wollman Hall, where approximately 100 people filled nearly every seat and corner. The conversation wrestled with the ethics of philanthropy and whether accepting corporate dollars might undermine the message at the heart of the Environmental Justice movement. Dwaign Tyndal, executive director at Alternatives for Community and Environment, spoke about this at the forum.
“All of this is blood money. I respect people that say, ‘I don’t wanna take that money,’ and I’m just saying that’s our money anyway. And between the business, slavery, and colonialism, where is the clean aspect of greenbacks in the American empire?”
Tyndal received his Masters Degree in Management and Urban Policy from The New School in 1998. He began his section by recalling his time here and urging the university to remember its radical roots.
“I don’t know about this New School, but back in 1996, the student body and the faculty was some of the most radical, progressive folks on the planet. Nothing was left unquestioned. Less than 30 years ago, this was a common understanding of what this institution used to be.”
He continued, “If we lose organizing, we have these pseudo-organizations fronting for corporations, pretending to be a part of our communities. And this is the state of our movement as we speak. The power that we have is the power in our neighborhoods. Know your neighbors. Know your stakeholders. That is where the power lies.”
Grassroots Power expanded on a topic explored at last year’s People’s Climate Week, which proudly opposed corporate involvement in the climate justice movement, and the “greenwashing” and “false solutions” of climate tech development. Last year’s main focus was carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and other forms of geo-engineering. Activists have long regarded CCS as a way for corporations to escape responsibility by offsetting their emissions and undermining Indigenous sovereignty and interests.
The day following Grassroots Power, a returning event was held in the Starr Foundation Hall, “Regenerative Metropolis: High Performance Carbon Sequestration 2024.” Like last year, the event focused on introducing upcoming and developing climate tech and policy related to CCS and sustainable architecture.
Beyond climate week, Harrington said TNS will be focusing on its composting program as a result of student requests, as well as expanding on the demand response program introduced last year; which was created to prevent blackouts and brownouts (temporary dips in voltage) by reducing energy usage on “peak” energy days. Some of the Tishman Center staff have said they hope to collaborate directly with Towers at some point in the future, despite his departure from their staff.
“In his multiple leadership roles within the University and beyond, Joel has championed the integration of climate justice and sustainability. We look forward to working closely with him to continue building this into the fabric of our community,” Director Baptista said.
“There hasn’t been much change yet, but I know he is still very committed to sustainability, so I’m looking forward to seeing how we can work with his office to actually do a lot more of these projects, and get institutional backing to do them,” Harrington said.