Rich Kassel's Blog
About
- Bio:
I came to NRDC in 1991 on a three-year grant, and never left. Over the years, I've worked on a lot of issues, including airport pollution, preserving community gardens and creating the Hudson River Park in NYC, and others.
But I've spent most of my time working to reduce the public health impacts from diesel buses, trucks, and other engines. This work started with our Dump Dirty Diesels Campaign to clean up NYC Transit's buses in the 1990s, and has since expanded to work at the federal level, and to similar projects in Mexico City and other polluted mega-cities around the world.
And, as our work on climate change has expanded, so has my own work. So, I now work on a range of projects to reduce the climate and other environmental impacts of our transportation systems, including projects to increase funding for public transit, to improve our ports, and to create bus rapid transit systems in our cities.
I live in New York City, and am thrilled to raise my family here. It's a great city for an environmentalist - great biking everywhere, plenty of greenmarkets for local food, beaches and mountains are nearby, and no shortage of projects to keep an environmental lawyer busy for years!
- Roots in:
- New York City and Long Island, with pitstops in Maine, Rhode Island, Colorado and New Jersey.
- Favorite place:
- Central Park in the morning, Riverside Park at sunset
- Why "environmentalism" matters:
- I think of environmentalism as a civil rights issue, as a social justice issue. All people should have the right to clean air and safe drinking water, all people should have access to public open space, all resources should be used in a way to protects the rights and needs of future generations.
Recent Blog Posts
- Congratulations to Judith Enck: EPA's next Region 2 Administrator (November 5, 2009)
- Stimulus News: Cost-Effective Diesel Retrofits Coming to a School Bus or Construction Site Near You! (October 21, 2009)
- Bloomberg and Booker Agree: We Need Cleaner Trucks at our Ports (October 19, 2009)
- NY City Council to vote on diesel school bus bill today (September 17, 2009)
- EPA's proposal to reduce ship emissions deserves our support (August 4, 2009)
- What the Stimulus Means for New York (March 12, 2009)
- R.I.P. Durango, Tahoe, and Suburban... (October 28, 2008)
- New Global Pact to Dump Dirty Diesels at Sea (October 10, 2008)
- Back to School Special: Free Diesel Fumes in Class (September 3, 2008)
- Help Dan Save Traffic (August 21, 2008)
Read more in Rich Kassel's Archives→
- Rich Kassel
- Senior Attorney and Director, Clean Fuels and Vehicles Project
- New York City