by Opheli Garcia Lawler

How can one be an environmentally conscious in a city that seems so at odds with nature?  The 2017 Sustainability Summit focused on answering this question by providing speakers, workshops, and and discussion centered around environmentalism in New York City. The Keynote speaker, Erika Lindsey, Senior Policy Advisor for the New York City Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, focused her presentation on the historical context of environmentalism in New York, and explained connections between race, poverty, and the negative effects of an urban environment. Perhaps the most compelling part of her presentation was when she connected the dots between poorer neighborhoods and the high levels of pollutants in the air and water in those neighborhoods.

This was followed by workshops where you could learn about how sewage flows into New York City rivers, urban agriculture, green building, and pollution’s impact on public health. During the break for lunch, people were mingling and so genuinely interested in what they had learned in the morning workshops and what Erika said during her presentation that much of the conversation centered around those topics. The afternoon was equally engaging, with workshops about environmental advocacy, urban waste management, and environmental protection.

What stood out throughout the day however, along with what attendees were learning, was who was doing the teaching: Women. For most of the workshops, along the keynote speaker Erika Lindsey, women were taking the floor, experts in their fields, which proved to be an important change of pace, as many conferences of similar size and topic can sometimes overlook the importance of female speakers.

The 2017 Sustainability Summit brought environmentalism back down to earth, made it tangible, relatable and realistic to city dwellers, and connected a wealth of other issues to the fight for sustainability. With this summit serving as a precedent, I think the conference can only grow and take on a more important role in campus discussions about university environmental policy, as well as other advocacy issues like gentrification and inclusivity.

Opheli is a junior at NYU majoring in GLS and Journalism. She is passionate about the intersectionality of environmentalism and moved to tears by photos of the ocean.