Letter from Gary R. Schoonmaker

Climate Action Plan Not Widely Discussed

Is there some kind of media blackout around the Climate Action Council’s activities? The New York State government (Legislature and governor), passed a law in 2019 called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). That act set a goal of “net-zero carbon emissions for the entire state economy by 2050.”

In order to implement that goal, the legislation commissioned a Climate Action Council to develop a draft Action Plan and then a Final Action Plan. In January 2022, the draft action plan was published and public hearings were subsequently held across New York State. If this is news to you, I expect you are in the majority of citizens of New York State. When I heard about the public hearing in Syracuse, it was only a couple of days before hearings were to be held and I had seen nothing on the news or in newspapers about them. I heard about it on a local Saturday morning radio program discussing how to maintain your home.