I like to consider myself a vet when it comes to this gluten-free craze. Since I was 3 years old I have been deathly allergic to wheat. During my sophomore year of college, I had my first beer. This might seem like a crazy thought but beer is loaded with gluten. But I was walking through Haggen and realized that they actually carry gluten-free beer. One beer in particular was Omission. This company uses reverse osmosis to extract all of the gluten out of beer. Anyways, I happily purchased this beer and took my first sip.

You might be thinking, “Why is he talking about gluten-free beer?”. Well, when I was scrolling through the Sustainable Development section of the New York Times, I scrolled across a very cool article titled, Building Toward a Goal of Reducing Emissions in New York City by 80 Percent. The word emissions actually made me think about the word Omission which in the end made me think about the first time I drank gluten-free beer. Anyways, isn’t that an eye-grabbing title for an article? I can see reducing emissions by 50% being extremely impressive but 80%!? That is downright mind-blowing.

During the People’s Climate March in September, Mayor Bill de Blasio went out of the way to announce that he has a goal of reducing New York Cities greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. That is nonetheless a hefty goal. Do you think its realistic? 25 years is quite sometime and a lot can happen in the evolution of sustainable practices.

Currently in my sustainability marketing class, we have been talking about ways to reduce our ecological footprint. New York City is a huge compact city and there is definitely a lot of pollution and trash (I witnessed it first-hand when I visited in high school). But I think that it is totally awesome that New York as a city is trying to reduce their footprint. Makes you wonder if Bill de Blasio had taken the ecological footprint quiz on myecologicalfootprint.org.

NYC plans to have cut their emissions 30% by 2030. Since 2007, the city has already been able to reduce their emissions by 19%. It sounds like they are one the right track! NYC was able to achieve this 19% reduction by mainly switching from coal and oil to natural gas for electricity generation.

NYC has one million buildings that emit a majority of these emissions. The main areas that emit emissions are from powering, heating and cooling of the buildings. They focus mainly on these areas to achieve the 80% emission reduction. They will also equip 24 public schools with solar panel roofs. Once these 24 have been implemented, they plan to equip 276 other schools with solar panel roofs.

These sustainability improvements will create a positive impact on the environment, as well as the wallets of NYC. New York City currently spends $800 million a year on energy costs, but when everything is set-up, they expect to save $180 million a year.

This a huge step in making our world a better place. When other cities see the success that NYC has achieved, they will not only be impressed but will jump on board to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Do you think that NYC will be able to achieve the 80% reduced emissions? Let me know in the comment section.