Passover is here and one word keeps coming to my mind: dayenu. Translated from Hebrew as “enough,” dayenu is the song Jews around the world sing at their Seder tables as they recount the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.
Enough already! Enough fossil fuels, enough climate change. It’s time New York committed to its climate goals. Surely this should be the message shared by our Democratic leaders in Albany. After weeks of delays in the state capital, our elected leaders finally passed its $237 billion budget late Saturday afternoon. But unbelievably, Governor Hochul and leaders in the Assembly failed to include two urgent pieces of climate legislation: the NY HEAT and Climate Change Superfund Acts. The cost of this choice is higher than they realize. They must reverse course and pass these bills in the remainder of this year’s legislative session.
Three generations ago, my great grandparents left unlivable conditions in their shtetl in Poland and took the biggest risk of their lives: coming to America. Living in the Lower East Side at the turn of the century was far from luxurious. They lived 5 people to a bedroom in a crowded tenement building without indoor plumbing. But they did what they had set out to do: change their fates and afford their children chances they never had in pogrom-plagued Eastern Europe. It’s hard for me to imagine how challenging my ancestors’ lives must have been back then. But they fought to change their reality. That is what we must do now in New York.
The HEAT and Superfund Acts can help shift us towards a safer, more livable reality here in New York. As many of us know, New Yorkers are dealing with an energy affordability crisis as well as a climate crisis. The HEAT Act addresses both. It ensures that no household pays more than 6% of their annual income on gas and electric bills. It also eliminates government subsidies for building new natural gas infrastructure. The Superfund Act, meanwhile, makes the state’s worst polluters pay to address the harm they’ve caused. The Superfund Act could raise up to $3 billion annually from major polluters to directly fund climate adaptation projects statewide, like building floodwalls in Manhattan and battling erosion on Long Island beaches.
Living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I find myself struggling to imagine the kind of future that my great-grandparents built when they first arrived on the Lower East Side. Every day that we don’t take dramatic climate action is a day in which we inch closer to climate catastrophe. It’s hard to imagine that I am living in the self-described “greatest city in the world.” When I look out, I see a reality where child asthma rates—caused by fossil fuel pollution—are some of the highest in the country; where we live under the threat of another superstorm that could overwhelm our city’s infrastructure; where extreme heat is claiming the lives of friends and neighbors every summer; where utilities are so expensive that working-class families in our city struggle to make ends meet.
It is time our state cleans up its act. It is time we held fossil fuel companies accountable for the lasting damage they have caused and charted a course towards renewable energy. Our elected officials here in New York have a unique opportunity to help move us forward by passing the HEAT and Superfund Acts before the end of the legislative session. Governor Hochul has the chance to deliver on her promise of being a climate champion. It’s time for her to step up.
As a climate activist, I have already taken action. Earlier this month, I attended a climate organizing meeting with a local chapter of Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action. As we discussed the environmental justice issues facing our communities and called the Governor’s office, I realized I wasn’t alone. Organizing with others, I felt empowered to keep fighting for an equitable, climate-resilient future for all New Yorkers because I saw that New Yorkers of all ages were fighting alongside me.
Our leaders have a responsibility to make fossil fuel companies and polluting corporations—not taxpayers—foot the bill for the damage they have caused by passing the Superfund Act. And they have an obligation to pass the HEAT Act so that their constituents can afford their utility bills as we make the transition to renewable energy. These two projects are not contradictory. They are codependent.
Writing from my Brooklyn apartment, I feel deeply connected to my ancestors—yet so far away. When my great grandparents stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, New York City looked like a better future. Three generations later, we must renew that promise for all New Yorkers. It is time our legislators stepped up to the plate.
Madeleine Dickman is a writer and activist based in Brooklyn, NY.
