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j.liu3

Changes in NYC Summers

August 16, 2015 by j.liu3 Leave a Comment

Summer in New York Cityーin any urban centerーis uncomfortable. It’s sticky and smelly. Kids are out of school, and there seem to be more tourists. Sun bakes the sidewalks and human hair. People are irritable.

Finally, summer also seems to be getting even more unbearably hot. According to a variety of sources, it is. According to Weather Underground, average summer temperatures have been rising in every region since 1970, and in many regions, spring feels like summer.

Whether the spiking temperatures can be attributed to climate change, global warming, or natural fluctuations doesn’t matter to many people when deodorant and air conditioning feel useless. How are people staying cool this summer? Do they think the summers are getting worse?

Florence, aged 73, has lived in New York City all her life. She stated that when she was younger, she didn’t feel the heat as she does now. But she also attributes the change in her perception of temperature to “the atmosphere,” saying that “the cycle of the weather has changed a lot.”

During Florence’s childhood, she recalled, “We didn’t have fans, or air conditioners. It’s relaxed, you know. It didn’t bother us, really. I don’t recall anyone complaining about [the heat]. Maybe my parents did, or my older siblings did, but it didn’t bother me.”

Today, Florence has to have air conditioning, or a fan at the very least, to deal with the “smothering” heat and humidity. Though she doesn’t see this summer as worse than the last, Florence thinks, “You come right out of winter [and] spring comes for a few days, a few weeks, and then, boom. Here comes summer.”

Florence finds that summers are getting longer, with the heat starting in what were traditionally spring months. Michael, who has lived in NYC for 28 years, agrees.

He finds that “it’s getting hotter earlier.” When prompted to elaborate, Michael stated that in his opinion, the hottest and driest part of summer has become July, rather than August. An older man, his advice is to get blinds, carry around a battery-operated fan, walk in the shade and make sure the windows of one’s home face away from the setting sun. He also carries around a wet handkerchief. Today, Michael says, “I usually use the air conditioner more.”

To Michael, the worst of summer in the city are the subway platforms. In his experience, the modern air-conditioned train cars is a “treat,” as one was lucky if the subways of the 20th century had windows that could open. Yet, Michael expects better from the MTA, arguing that sweating commuters deserve air-conditioned platforms. In an 2012 article in Transportation Nation, the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority addressed that issue: “Unfortunately, air conditioning of subway stations is not feasible due to the open nature of their construction and the impossibility of cooling an infinite space.”

There are many opinions on the use of air conditioners.

Jeff Strong was born and raised in New York City, and has lived in New York on and off for over fifty years. In his childhood, he was frequently at camp during the summers, but today, Jeff stays in the city for work. Working in business has opened his eyes to the sheer wastefulness that air conditioning can be.

According to the New York Times, the temperature set for most offices is based on a 1960s formula that took into account the working office population of the time: middle-aged males wearing formal or business attire. As a result, younger, more lightly dressed, and/or female office workers are chilled by the temperature. Some bring sweaters and heaters to work. To Jeff, it is the height of ridiculousness.

He also takes offense at the open doors of many air-conditioned stores that blast cold air into the streets, even going as far as to close the doors of those guilty stores one in a while. That is not to say Jeff doesn’t appreciate air conditioning. He just advocates that the temperature be set in the 70s rather than the 60s.

Evey, aged 54 years, disagrees. Evey, like Florence, has lived in NYC all her life. She described the summers of the 1960s and 1970s as “beautiful,” saying “the summer was the summer” and “we never [had] these drastic heat waves.” She also stated that she sees the changing temperatures as a result of “[what’s happening] with the ozone layer and all those diesel fuels. Now, she says summers are “stifling” and added “I would definitely say there is less spring and fall.” Her only advice was to dress appropriately and turn up the AC.

It’s clear that when most people try to think of solutions to the heat, their minds immediately go to air conditioners. Ironically, it is the air conditioners that are part of the larger causes of global warming and climate change: the rapid consumption of fuel.

But there seems to be few other solutions. For example, the sight of fire hydrants being illegally tampered with to produce water sprays for desperate children used to be common in low-income communities. Today, fines and greater awareness of the dangers of tampering has curbed this practice. No solution is completely without consequences.

Filed Under: Lifestyles, Manhattan, News

The Baruch College Experience: Social and Satisfied?

August 6, 2015 by j.liu3

Is Baruch College worth it? To many, what makes a college experience worthwhile are the friends one makes there.

As incoming freshmen this summer ready themselves to spend the next several years at their matriculated colleges, the fear of not being able to meet people remains. Baruch College, a well-known commuter school, has its own story.

According to U.S. News & World Report, 100% of Baruch students live off-campus, and only 2% of students live in college-owned, operated, or affiliated housing. Those planning to apply to Baruch know very well the stereotype that commuter students who live far away don’t hang around after class.

That view is supported by Mohammad, a sophomore majoring in Finance, who claims that Baruch students are just there for the diploma, and see clubs as a way to stick fancy titles on a résumé rather than an opportunity to make friends. Instead, Mohammad had found his friends freshman year by hanging around the edges of the campus looking for a smoke. Today, Mohammad no longer smokes, but the common ground of a shared vice brought him and his companions together.

To Anushka, a senior who had transferred into Baruch, it’s all about networking. She held a full-time job until this spring, so it wasn’t the forty-minute commute from Upper Manhattan that obstructed her from making friends, but her financial responsibility. Instead, she builds friendships through shared classes and staying in touch. Anushka continued by saying that “It [took] me forever to realize that college’s not just about getting a good GPA or whatever…you have to get connected, you have to network.”

Anushka acknowledged it would be easier to connect to people if Baruch was a residential college. After all, dorms are well known for forcing roommates and suitemates to bond, perhaps even over the roaches and the lack of space.

Franklin, a junior who transferred from Hofstra University, lives in Queens, with a fifty-minute commute. On a bad day, it can take a hour. However, Franklin says “I feel [Baruch] is more social [than Hofstra]. I feel like there’s more things going on right here than there ever was back at the other university, [where] I used to commute as well.” Franklin also stated that “most” students at Hofstra live in a dorm (according to U.S. News & World Report, 47% of Hofstra students), so the university would cater to those who lived nearby. Those who lived off-site, then, had a significant disadvantage. At Baruch, everyone lives off-site.

For Joe, an incoming freshman who has to commute about an hour and a half from Staten Island, the commute does present a problem. However, he thinks that joining clubs would allow him to meet the people he wouldn’t otherwise. According to U.S. News & World Report, Baruch has 172 registered clubs and organizations, so it should not be too hard to find a niche.

“If you let it, it can provide a lot of opportunities, like if you go and set up schedules with your friends to leave at the same time every morning, and get to school around the same time, or take the same trains, then there’s a lot of opportunities,” said Joe.

Filed Under: Featured, Manhattan, News

Crisis of the Greek Citizen, Not Just of Nation

July 29, 2015 by j.liu3

The Greek Debt Crisis needs to be seen through the eyes of people. The outside world has a tendency to focus on the Greek Debt Crisis as an issue for the nation of Greece, or of the EU.

 

During the global financial crisis of 2008, a credit crunch, the sudden and sharp reduction in how much credit is available from banks, led investors to discover that the Greek government had misreported statistics so that the Greek economic situation looked much more stable than it actually was. As investors raced to pull their stocks and other resources out of the Greek economy, the Greek economic situation worsened until it threatened to collapse.

 

The resulting 110 billion euros in bailout funds by the troika—the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission—in 2010 came with the catch of austerity measures that would require budget cuts to social welfare spending and pension programs. The Greeks agreed.

 

In 2012, the threat of a Greek economic collapse rose again, and the troika handed the Greeks another 100 billion euros, along with more austerity measures. Once again, the Greeks agreed.

 

Meanwhile, Greece’s citizens were suffering. The age of retirement was pushed back. Government workers were laid off. According to a 2013 video by the New York Times, the Greek government raised taxes on heating oil by 450 percent alone, leading people to use dirty and environmentally dangerous alternatives for heat. Greece had an unnegotiable $1.7 billion IMF payment coming up on June 30, 2015, so politicians passed even more stringent cuts.The Greek population was desperate for an end to the austerity measures as they continued to impact their daily lives.

 

On January 25, 2015, the radical left wing party Syriza won the majority of votes in the Greek parliament elections. Its leader Alexis Tsipras became prime minister. Syriza had campaigned successfully on the promise of ending the crisis with the implementation of the Thessaloniki Program.

 

The Thessaloniki Program calls the Greek debt crisis a “humanitarian crisis” and advocates for a “comprehensive grid of emergency interventions, so as to raise a shield of protection for the most vulnerable social strata.” The cost of such emergency interventions? An estimated 1,882 billion euros. Not surprisingly, the proposal has been criticized by both opposition and party members.

 

Putting the cost of the Thessaloniki Program aside, Greece still owes double the country’s annual economic output. That’s more than 240 billion euros, or about $264 billion at today’s exchange rates, plus interest to its creditors: 63 billion euros to private lenders, and a 195 billion euro debt on the bailouts, including 57 billion from Germany and 43 billion from France. It would be a hard road to repay such debt.

 

According to the New York Times, the Greek government doesn’t have to make any payments on 200 billion euros of its debt until 2023, and the IMF has proposed extending the grace period until 2050. Greece has defaulted on the $1.7 billion IMF payment, and the ECB has been putting pressure on the repayment of the bonds it procured for Greece during the worst of the 2008 financial crisis.

 

On July 5, 2015, the Greek government held a referendum to decide whether Greece was to accept the bailout conditions proposed by the troika on June 25. In a move that shocked the world, which had expected a repeat of 2010 and 2012, the Greek people voted NO.

 

As a result, Greece must work on the negotiations surrounding the austerity measures that still exist, as well as the unintended consequences of the Greek government’s actions on its citizens. The first week of July, Greek citizens, both in the country and abroad, found their accounts frozen by the Greek government to prevent bank runs. Limits on withdrawals continue. According to Endeavour Greece, a non-profit group that supports entrepreneurs,

Greek businesses are finding it difficult to procure resources and offices abroad, while investors in Greek businesses are pulling out.

 

Whether the Greek government chooses to exit the European Union and hope that the resulting deflation would spike exports, or to stay and take out more loans from the troika, experts predict a difficult adjustment period for both the nation and the people.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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