Envisioning 2030: Decarbonizing Our Community for a Sustainable Future

Join Landmark and Transition Town Port Washington for a conversation with Midge Iorio, executive director of Bedford 2030, who has helped lead the way in cutting carbon emissions in her town, and Walter Meyer, a leader in sustainable and resilient design.

The speakers will discuss how communities can successfully move toward achieving net zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 2040. Achieving this goal is paramount in preventing catastrophic overshoot beyond 1.5 degrees C of global warming. Discussion and Q & A will be moderated by Margaret Galbraith, founding member of Transition Town Port Washington.

Midge Iorio is the Executive Director of Bedford 2030. During her time at Bedford2020, the Town of Bedford achieved a 44% reduction in GHG emissions and exceeded its 2020 Climate Action Goal, they held the Bedford 2020 Car Show: New York State's First Fuel Efficient Car/EV Show, and recently adopted a 2030 Climate Action Plan to reduce ghg emissions 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2040.

Walter Meyer, principal of Local Office Landscape & Design (LOLA), is a landscape and urban designer, educator, and community organizer for climate justice. President Obama named Walter a White House Champion of Change. The New York Times and The New Yorker documented how LOLA's redesign for the soggy Miracle Mile district in Miami protected small business owners, absorbing the heaviest floods ever measured during hurricane Irma. Shops opened the next business day while the rest of the city took months to recover. Architectural Record documented how 30 businesses were protected from Hurricane Maria by the 2km Parque Litoral in Puerto Rico, where LOLA converted an industrial shore into dunes, wetlands, and an urban forest. Walter's landscape-led city making approach is currently being implemented in state resiliency plans for New Jersey and Mississippi, and he is designing NYC's first climate-proof fossil-fuel-free neighborhood named Arverne East in Rockaway Beach.

Margaret Galbraith is a founding member and facilitator of Transition Town Port Washington (TTPW). She is a Fulbright recipient studying the women's movement in Argentine. Margaret has worked in community development and involved with urban planning in Oakland, California, assisting immigrants from Latin America and Southeast Asia. Margaret has directed and produced award-winning documentaries and promotional videos through her production company, SeeScape Films. She is active in local politics and environmental activism and now calls Port Washington home.