Human habitat is the space that we live in, biologically and socially. Traditional environmentalism has focused on how we transform nature in ways that are detrimental and non-sustainable. My approach to the environment is broader and more holistic, embracing not only opposition to the havoc unrestrained industrial development has wreaked on the landscape but also on the ways society has been misorganized to cripple our attempts to change how we live with nature and how we live with each other. Genuine popular democracy is a critical ingredient of a developmental and sustainable human habitat.
I believe there are a number of steps that can be taken immediately to repair the damage already done to our human habitat and begin the process of re-inventing the space we live in.
Close the Indian Point nuclear power plant. It is a chronic health hazard and a security nightmare. Radioactive materials and equipment at the plant should not be transported but entombed on-site.
Outlaw the transport of industrial and military nuclear materials on land, sea and air through New York State.
September 11 has measurably worsened air quality in NYC and given George Pataki an excuse for asking the federal government to waive the provisions of the Clean Air Act during the rebuilding process, which could take years. The Green Party opposes such waivers and demands that NYC's air quality conform to and exceed national standards.
Protect wildlife and nature conservation preserves in the Catskills, Adirondacks and other regions of the state from residential, recreational or industrial development. No casinos in the Catskills or Adirondacks. No development allowed in the vicinity of reservoirs.
Stop aerial spraying for mosquitoes, including for the vectors of the West Nile virus, under all circumstances. There are ecologically sustainable techniques of insect control that do not rely upon chemical agents. Their use should be the primary option as a matter of law in New York State.
Initiate a statewide environmental clean-up, focused on the Hudson River and other waterways. PCBs, PBBs and dioxins, known cancer-inducing industrial chemicals, should be eliminated from the water and soil of the state. Urban areas should be subjected to a radical garbage removal and control program, designed to eliminate the rat population and attack the urban juvenile asthma epidemic. Unsealed, vacant buildings and garbage-strewn lots should be expropriated by the State of New York, without compensation to the owner, after warning and due process of law.
New York State must have a rational land use policy, designed to protect wildlands, promote bio-diversity and support sustainable, non-chemical-driven agriculture. New York State should not only subsidize organic agriculture, but its vast agricultural research resources should be employed to provide organic farming technological leadership to the rest of the nation and to the world.
The Cooperative Extension Service of the State of New York must be employed to save and support small agricultural enterprises. Corporate farming must not be allowed to drive out small, local producers; New York State needs a network of farm cooperatives. Isolated small farmers sell produce below wholesale, but they must buy at retail. Cooperatives buy wholesale and set their produce sale prices--much like a labor union-- to sustain their enterprises.
Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are either homeless or live in substandard housing. The State of New York should take all possible measures to eliminate homelessness in urban and rural regions. In the next 10 years, 100,000 new, affordable housing units should be built or rehabilitated across the state. These homes should be constituted as true cooperatives, meaning that they cannot be sold at market rates and may only be sold back to the cooperative.
Oppose abuses of our Great Lakes' already-fragile ecosystem, including large-scale water diversions and drilling or jet-trenching under or into the Lakes.
These are but a few of the Popular Democracy agendas, often opposed or neglected by the Democratic and Republican Parties, that Stanley Aronowitz and the Green Party will bring to the political front stage in 2002. We need your input and support.
