We arrived in NYC determined to eat as many bagels as possible — carbs just don’t get any better than a fresh NYC bagel. We stayed with my friends in their Brooklyn brownstone. Their son James is an up and coming bicyclist.

While in NYC we gave talks at NYU, an EMS store in Manhattan and a school in Harlem. Recycle a Bicycle coordinated the Harlem talk and we had an opportunity to see their shop at the school. Kids work in the shop learning bicycle maintenance and business skills. They build up bicycles from old parts and sell them to finance the shop and many educational programs.

Before we left town, David appeared live on the Telemundo nightly news (Spanish news channel for NY and NJ) and was interviewed for Despierta America — the interview will air internationally (40 million viewers) on Univision in the next few weeks.

Global warming will be a significant problem for NYC. Many more days over 90 degrees would drive up cooling costs and threaten public health — especially the elderly. Rising seas combined with a storm surge are a serious threat for much of the city.

We were surprised to learn that the average American emits about 3 times as much global warming pollution as the average NYC resident. This is largely because of NYC’s great mass transportation (subway, buses, etc.) and smaller homes which require less energy to heat and cool. We also found that the Mayor had just released a plan to cut global warming emissions by 30% by 2030. The plan focuses on clean power, avoiding sprawl, more efficient building and sustainable transportation. The plan is designed to have multiple benefits — so that as they reduce global warming emissions and air pollution they also save billions in lower energy costs and reduced traffic congestion.