Asking Cuomo to be a Climate Leader Got Me Banned from the Garden

I am no longer welcome at the World’s Most Famous Arena. It turns out that watching the Knicks lose from the comfort of your living room couch is the price you pay for crashing a press event at Madison Square Garden to tell Governor Andrew Cuomo to move New York off fossil fuels. 

My group is part of the statewide climate movement pushing the governor to do more than issue press releases touting his record of standing up to Donald Trump. We’re ramping up the pressure to convince Cuomo to walk the talk and be a true leader; dozens of organizations across the state are taking part in a mobilization called Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice in September, urging Governor Cuomo and elected officials at all levels to move off fossil fuels.

This might surprise some people, who could have the impression that Cuomo’s climate accomplishments are strong. But if you look beyond than the grandstanding headlines, you find that Cuomo’s climate record is abysmal. The governor claims that New York has “the most aggressive clean energy mandate in the United States,” but in reality the renewable energy sources we must develop -- wind, solar, and geothermal -- account for only 4 percent of New York’s electricity.

In the meantime, the Cuomo administration is approving pipelines and power plants that deepen New York’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels like oil and fracked gas, and even backing policies that threaten the growth of solar energy. The result is more pollution that poisons our air and water, and more greenhouse gases that make the planet hotter, increase sea level rise, and fuel extreme weather events.

During the campaign to ban fracking, picketing Cuomo was an important tactic to gain his attention, leading him to quip that our grassroots movement was everywhere he went. He was correct -- and he will be seeing a lot more of us until he moves New York off fossil fuels.

The climate crisis demands real leadership, and that’s why we aren’t willing to give the governor a pass simply because a climate-denier is in the White House. So wherever Governor Cuomo appears, we are there too. For example, when Cuomo held a swanky mid-July fundraiser at Billy Joel’s Long Island waterfront estate, we were as close as we could get, paddling in kayaks with a banner reading, “No Fracked Gas Plants.”

When we get close enough to speak with Governor Cuomo, he reminds us that he banned fracking four years ago. Now we need him to take the next, necessary step: A full halt to all fossil fuel infrastructure projects, from the Williams Pipeline off the Rockaways, to the scandal-plagued CPV power plant in Orange County, to the proposed gas plant in an already-polluted minority neighborhood in Albany. In moving off fossil fuels, New York must make a shift to 100 percent renewable energy. We have the technology to transition to clean energy, and we face climate catastrophe if we don’t.

There’s no doubt that Governor Cuomo is feeling the pressure. At an event in May, he told my colleague that he would not allow any more fossil fuel power plants to be built in New York. That would be a genuinely bold move– if it were true. As we have learned from Cuomo’s time in office, what he says and what he does aren’t always the same thing.

During the campaign to ban fracking, picketing Cuomo was an important tactic to gain his attention, leading him to quip that our grassroots movement was everywhere he went. He was correct -- and he will be seeing a lot more of us until he moves New York off fossil fuels.

That’s why we were at the Garden, where Cuomo was on hand to congratulate Billy Joel on his 100th gig at the iconic arena. We were there long enough to let Cuomo know our demands, and then we were hustled outside.

Once we were out on the street, a pair of police officers asked for our identification, and then they delivered the bad news: We were now on the list of those banned at the Garden. If only it were that easy to convince Governor Cuomo to be the true climate leader that New York and the nation desperately needs.