Environmental Performance Agency
Multispecies Care Survey
In a time of pandemic crisis, how do we re-value what care means for all living beings? About the project →
Virtual Soil Wunderkammer Protocol 03
We invite you to virtually land, fly towards and/or walk through the Soil Wunderkammer (tree-pit) you engaged in Protocol 02. Use Google Earth or Google Maps to travel back and forward in time, using computer's eye and vast database to observe past states of the soil, plants, and infrastructure on the land you are investigating.
Participate: Virtual Soil Wunderkammer Protocol 03
Use Google Earth or Google Maps to observe the data of an other time, day and hour.
Navigate to the address where your tree-pit is located, and begin journey guided by your own joy and curiosity.
You might travel by foot, moving on the sidewalk or in the street like a ghostly pedestrian, drift from a satellite down to land down on the earth and/or fly like a bird, taking a distant view. As you observe, ask yourself: Where and how do you see pushback against the infrastructure and human-drive systems that limit and constrain the living beings of the tree pit ecosystem? Can you find moments in the past where they show their own agency, shifting and changing of their own accord? Make notes in your fieldwork journal and take screenshots as you go.
Responses
- Becky Lyon, London
- Agoston, from Gellért Hill, Budapest
- andrea from Lenapehocking land, Brooklyn, NY
- Ellie, Mohican land, Troy, NY
Further action
Is your state fighting to control transportation-related emissions?
Global temperatures are on target to rise at least 3°C (5.4 ° F) by 2100. On March 31, 2020, while the country was in lockdown due to the Covid19 pandemic, the US EPA passed a rule relaxing fuel efficiency standards through 2026 (based on spurious science). Transportation related greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise as Americans get on the road again. While Federal agencies fail us, states are fighting to regulate emissions more aggressively. Twenty-two states have sued the EPA.
U.S. EPA is trying to omit vital Public Health Data- Tell them what you think!
In early March 2020, the U.S. EPA announced further amendments to it’s “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” policy proposal, which has been dubbed the “Censor Science Rule” by the scientific community, as it disqualifies all anonymous medical data – effectively the data that measures the health impact of environmental pollution. We now know that the respiratory illness caused by Covid19 has brought the unsettling correlation between death rates and the POC and immigrant communities most exposed to environmental pollution further to light.
ADD YOUR VOICE TO THE PUBLIC COMMENTS: Due to continued pushback on this proposal commenting is extended until May 18th. Visit regulations.gov to give a public comment, search by Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OA–2018–0259.
Don’t let the U.S. EPA get away with using the pandemic as an open license to pollute
Good Air quality is key for both humans and nonhumans alike. On March 26th, 2020, the U.S. EPA released a letter titled “COVID-19 Implications for EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Program”, announcing that it would not be enforcing its compliance regulations, giving industry a pass to pollute freely during this global health crisis. Former US EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy, called it “an open license to pollute.”
How are bird and multispecies communities being impacted by US EPA rollbacks?
This March the U.S. EPA gutted the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which now no longer holds individuals or companies (for example real estate companies) accountable for the incidental killing of migratory birds. In New York City, 90,000 birds collide with buildings every year, many of these are migratory birds, as the city is located on a major migratory pathway. One more reason to stand up against massive real estate developments in the city!
MAKE A PROTEST POSTER FOR YOUR WINDOW! And if you happen to live in a highrise, or any building with glass:
We want real climate justice policy! What Energy Policy would your Street Tree Endorse?
In 2017 former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a notice proposing a repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which requires utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. The rule was replaced in 2019 with the “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) rule which weakens emissions standards. The U.S. EPA, over the past 4 years, has rolled back over 95 rules put in place to protect environmental health, supporting the interests of the coal, gas, and oil industries, along with Big Agriculture. How has this changed the role and pressure we place on so-called green infrastructure? What kind of energy policy would street trees endorse? Read about the Red New Deal, and A Peoples Climate Plan for NYC.
Almost ⅔ of Earth’s biodiversity is bacterial. How do we deconstruct and unlearn human supremacy?
The U.S. EPA endorses the use of powerful herbicides and pesticides like glyphosate (Round Up) and chlorpyrifos. In 2019, the U.S. EPA announced that it would not ban chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide that its own experts have linked to serious health problems in children, and farmworkers. Now more than ever our food supply depends on supporting and protecting farmworkers.
Visit Beyond Pesticides to learn more.
Tell Congress to provide essential benefits to essential workers