A New Book Looks at Bloomberg's Hidden Environmental Legacy

By Michele Berger

Michael Bloomberg’s time as the mayor of New York City is quickly drawing to a close, with just a few weeks left in office. Who will take the reins is no longer uncertain; what’s still up in the air, however, is whether Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect, will follow Bloomberg’s lead on environmental policies and climate change, two areas the current mayor fought hard for during 12 years leading the city.

Despite extensive climate change mitigation efforts, this part of Bloomberg’s tenure often gets overlooked in mainstream press coverage — or criticized for not being enough. A recently published book, Bloomberg’s Hidden Legacy: Climate Change and the Future of New York City, dives deep into this aspect of the mayor’s work, from the days following the U.S. refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol to Superstorm Sandy and beyond.

“Bloomberg was approaching his last year and there were a lot of big questions. He had spent a good chunk of his time in office making this a priority,” Katherine Bagley, a reporter for InsideClimate News and one of the book’s co-authors, told weather.com. “When we started, we didn’t know who was going to be in office. It could’ve been someone who didn’t have the same environmental or climate focus as Bloomberg. That would’ve been a dangerous step back after so many years of progress.”

Bagley and co-author, Maria Gallucci, also of InsideClimate News, spent the better part of a year talking to Sandy victims and environmental advocates, as well as policymakers (both within and outside the Bloomberg administration) and Bloomberg himself. What has emerged from those conversations is a survey of the climate change progress Bloomberg did make — from planting 800,000 trees to his Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency — in a surprisingly lively look at an unquestionably dry topic.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/new-book-looks-bloombergs-hidden-environmental-legacy-20131119