Ecochallenge.org

Drawdown Ecochallenge

Cat Hartwell

NYU Applied Global Public Health Initiative - Team Narwhal

"Advocating for environmental justice and climate change solutions for a healthier and more equitable world. "

Points Total

0 Today
0 This Week
671 Total

Participant Impact

up to

40

minutes

spent exercising
up to

38

minutes

spent learning
up to

6

meatless or vegan meals

consumed
up to

2

plastic containers

not sent to the landfill
up to

1

trees

planted

Cat's Actions

Action Track: Building Resilience

Express My Support For Walkable Cities

Walkable Cities

I will find out who in my city makes decisions that impact neighborhood walkability and express my support for better walking infrastructure.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Building Resilience

Learn More about Regenerative Agriculture

Conservation Agriculture, Regenerative Annual Cropping

I will spend at least 15 minutes learning about the need for more regenerative agriculture.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Building Resilience

Support a Community Garden

Multiple Solutions

I will support a community garden by volunteering, donating, or advocating for a new or existing one.

Completed
One-Time Action

Action Track: Building Resilience

Communicate With My Elected Officials

Onshore Wind Turbines, Offshore Wind Turbines

I will write or call 3 elected official(s) telling them not to support fossil fuel subsidies and instead support wind energy generation.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Healing & Renewal

Explore My Area

Sometimes protecting nature requires feeling connected to nature. I will invest 30 minutes in exploring and appreciating a natural area in my region, whether a forest, wetland, coastal area, or somewhere else.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Healing & Renewal

Go for a Daily Walk

Walkable Cities

I will take a walk for 30 minutes each day and take note of the infrastructure that makes walking more or less enjoyable, accessible, and possible.

COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION

Action Track: Healing & Renewal

Plant Trees

Temperate Forest Restoration

I will plant 1 tree(s) in my community, public parks, or backyard.

Completed
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Research Businesses Owned by Women, POC, or Immigrants

Sustainable Intensification for Smallholders

I will spend 15 minutes each day researching businesses owned by women, people of color, or immigrants that I can support when shopping.

Completed
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Reduce Animal Products

Plant-Rich Diets

I will enjoy 2 meatless or vegan meal(s) each day of the challenge.

COMPLETED 3
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Support Nutrient Management

Nutrient Management

I will research and support local farmers who have made the decision to not use synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Support Organic Growing Methods

Nutrient Management

I will buy organic cotton and foods grown without the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

COMPLETED 3
DAILY ACTIONS

Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

Smart Seafood Choices

Ocean Farming

I will visit seafoodwatch.org or download the app and commit to making better seafood choices for a healthier ocean.

Completed
One-Time Action

Health and Education

Learn about the Need for Family Planning

Health and Education

I will spend at least 13 minutes learning more about the need for family planning globally.

Completed
One-Time Action

Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

Keep Plastic Straws Out of Our Seas

Today, I will use a metal, paper, bamboo or other reusable straw in lieu of a plastic straw. This will protect our coastal ecosystems because so many of these straws end up in our oceans.

COMPLETED 11
DAILY ACTIONS

Industry

Buy goods in Person instead of Online

Our online purchases are convenient, but they also come with added carbon emissions from extra shipping and packaging. Instead of ordering something online, today I will buy something in person from a local business.

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Industry

Recycle Everything I Can

Recycling

Contamination prevents what is recyclable from being recycled. I will research and recycle all materials that are accepted by local haulers or drop stations in my community, making sure to not contaminate recyclables with non-recyclables.

COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION

Industry

Reduce Single-Use Disposables

Bioplastics

I will avoid buying and using 2 single-use plastics and instead replace them with durable options.

COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION

Industry

Practice the 5 R's

Recycling

I will Practice the "5 Rs" — refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle — to reduce my waste more than I can with just recycling alone.

COMPLETED 4
DAILY ACTIONS

Action Track: Justice for the Whole Community

Your Climate Story

This could be focused on observations you have made about climate change in your community, stories about how you are impacted by changing climate, statements about how you influence the changing climate, or a narrative about why you are passionate about climate. For example, if you were going to make a mind map or write a personal narrative but frame it entirely around the ways that your life intersects with/impacts/is impacted by climate change, what would that story be? Record your story in a way that resonates with you: an essay, a poem, a series of photographs, or a short video.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Justice for the Whole Community

Community Building

Set up a time to meet with one FXB Climate Advocate for at least 30 minutes to share about your backgrounds and climate advocacy projects.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Food

Smaller Portions

Reduced Food Waste

I will use smaller plates and/or serve smaller portions when dishing out food.

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Action Track: Social Justice

Climate Education Research

Find 5 statistics about climate education for high school students in the United States. Share via Flock!

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Reflection on Dialogue with Saket Mani

Please write a brief reflection of what you took away from our dialogue with Saket Mani on February 3rd. (In your folder, in google drive)(

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Action Track: Social Justice

Share one concrete action

Share about one concrete action you took this week to combat climate change

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Prepare for Webinar with Nikayla Jefferson

Have 5 questions ready for NIkayla Jefferson for our webinar on Wednesday February 12th at 5pm via Google Hangout.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

FXB Climate Advocate Recruitment

Recruit 2 friends to join FXB Climate Advocates!

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Instagram Post

I will post on FXB Climate Advocate's Instagram about climate change.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Social Media Campaign

I will create an outline for a social media campaign to position climate change as an urgent crisis.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

International Climate Advocates

I will make a list of international youth climate activists and their social media handles.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Earth Day Project

I will prepare an outline for a major initiative I will undertake between January and April, culminating on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, 2020.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Climate Action for FXB Climate Advocates

Select an existing action from one of the tracks or create a customized action for the entire FXB Climate Advocates team to complete.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

FXB Climate Advocates Instagram

Log in to FXB Climate Advocates Instagram Account (digital credentials are in the Google Drive) and follow 10 key people or organizations that are working on climate change.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Climate Change News

Read one article of your choice about climate change and write up a brief overview of the article and why it is important. Upload to Google Drive

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Organize climate change talk at your school

Set the date for a climate change talk at your school in January or February. Get at least 10-15 students to attend. The presenter will be someone who is trained to present from the Climate Reality Project.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Action Track: Social Justice

Review of Climate Change 101 Resources

Review the content of each resource in Climate Change 101 presentation and provide feedback on whether the resource is useful/engaging, etc. Upload a brief write up in your folder in Google Drive.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Feed

Reflection Question
Action Track: Building Resilience Support a Community Garden

What are the multiple benefits of community gardens, including carbon sequestration? Why do these benefits matter to you?

Cat Hartwell 4/22/2021 11:10 AM

So, a little fun fact about me is that I started gardening three years ago on a shared property in upstate New York. My first two summers were very humbling, with a pretty steep learning curve. But last year I finally made some progress. Spending time covered in dirt and watching seeds become seedlings become plants become vegetables (which I then turned into food for people that I love) was one of the most therapeutic and rewarding things that I could have imagined while our world was experiencing so much pain and loss and darkness.

This is why Community Gardens are so important! They provide spaces in our concrete jungles where people can reconnect with the earth, and they shape our understanding of the process of where our food comes from. They also provide a respite from our noisy lives and our noisy city. I signed this Earth Justice petition to protect NY's community gardens. The posting is a little old but the link is still live and the petition is still going. While NYC budgets are cut in response to the pandemic and our city planners look to areas where they can save money, I think it's important that they not take away from these important and sustainable centers of social infrastructure.

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Reflection Question
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Research Businesses Owned by Women, POC, or Immigrants

Globally, women typically invest a higher proportion of their earnings in their families and communities than men. What have you done in the past to support women-owned businesses? How can you better support communities by supporting women?

Cat Hartwell 4/15/2021 11:50 AM

Today, I looked into sustainable businesses owned by women in New York City. It was really exciting to see that there are so many that I will be able to support asap. In my neighborhood, Guevera's cafe is vegan and sells all kinds of plant based alternatives in their market. I already love that place, but was excited to find out it was owned by a woman of color. I also found a woman-owned sustainability focused cafe out in Rockaway Beach, Cuisine by Claudette, that I look forward to supporting this summer when I head out to the beach.

Final plug, my dear friend Agatha is the co-founder of Ovenly (also women-owned!) and they have really excellent practices surrounding reducing food waste and hiring from at-risk populations. So people can feel good about eating that Ovenly vegan chocolate chip cookie!

I noticed that many women owned businesses are very vocal about their core values or missions (see: Ovenly "Radical Responsibility" or Cuisine by Claudette's "Core Values" pages on their website), which I thought was very interesting to see.

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Reflection Question
Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks Smart Seafood Choices

Many states and countries have advisories on eating fish. Find out what is advised for your region. Do you think your diet choices fall within these guidelines? What steps do you need to take to make sure that they do?

Cat Hartwell 4/09/2021 12:05 PM

While working on the Years of Living Dangerously "Oceans" episode, I began to question my intake of seafood. The more I learned about how destructive commercial fishing is to the health of the oceans, I pretty much stopped eating seafood altogether for about 3 years. Since then, I have added back in some kinds of seafood as an occasional protein source. If having seafood, I usually aim for the bottom of the food chain, and always strive for sustainable sourcing - like the guy at my farmer's market who brings in fish that I've never even heard of sometimes because it's what is in the local waters.

My big struggle, however, has surrounded salmon. I loved salmon before my time working on Years, but have been so confused about whether it's okay to have even a little bit. I read conflicting things about salmon - wild good, farming bad. Farming good, wild bad. Again, it was easier to ultimately avoid salmon altogether with certain social exceptions (a wedding I attended where salmon was the main course. a special brunch where lox was served, etc). So I was glad to read the article about how salmon can act as an environmental justice solution - providing important nutrients to the ecosystems they live in and sustaining indigenous cultures. I also downloaded the Seafood Watch app to my phone, which will help me make more informed decisions about what I am eating.

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Reflection Question
Health and Education Learn about the Need for Family Planning

What did you learn about the need for family planning? How do the needs of different people in different places compare to each other?

Cat Hartwell 4/08/2021 7:16 AM

I definitely recommend the Katharine Wilkinson video for anyone who wants to connect the dots between gender equity and climate change solutions. In addition to learning a lot, she speaks from the heart and it is incredibly inspiring. Did you know that women are basically the primary farmers of the world and produce up to 80% of food in LMICs? She makes the argument that women create more food on smaller lots of land, and by empowering them we can reduce emissions from deforestation due to agricultural practices.

She also talks about the connection between both educating girls and enabling family planning so that women can have families when they are ready and reducing emissions because we will be curbing population growth. There are really strong arguments throughout the video, and it leaves you hopeful for the future (not in hopeless despair).

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Cat Hartwell 4/07/2021 10:33 AM

So far I think my challenge is going well, but I would like to break out of my daily sustainability routine and try something new. In addition to keeping straws out of the landfill by using a metal straw for my daily smoothie and also practicing the 5 R's, I'm going to go for first Health and Wellness action today by watching the Katharine Wilkinson Ted Talk on how empowering women and girls can help stop global warming. I know that Women and Girls fall under Goal 5 of the SDGs (Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment), but I'm excited to hear Katharine tie back the role of women and girls in climate change mitigation.

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Reflection Question
Industry Practice the 5 R's

What are some more "R's" you could add to your daily practice to reduce your waste?

Cat Hartwell 4/02/2021 10:11 AM

I already recycle, and in my house we are huge fans of composting. We also "reuse" things like jars to use instead of tupperware and "repurpose" items (I'm thinking of a candle that I turned into a planter). I do think I can improve upon "refusing' waste though. Sometimes things come in plastic - like jalepeno peppers or tomatoes - when it would be so much easier to just pick them individually and avoid the plastic altogether. I will try to refuse waste whenever possible!

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Cat Hartwell 4/02/2021 10:04 AM

In today's lab, the Billion Oyster Project talked about their nature based solution to improving the ecosystem of New York Harbor. I think the work they are doing is so cool! How amazing to learn how to scuba dive as part of your high school curriculum?! But also, more importantly, I love the way that they work arm in arm with waterfront BIPOC communities to ensure that they participate in and inform the projects that impact their coastlines. And the safe spaces project too is really important for ensuring that *everyone* has access to these resources.

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