Dan Miner's current and past projects

I'm an environmental and community activist with experience in business and government. Current projects are on the front page.  The archive pages record some of my past projects. 

For more about me, see:

• LinkedIn profile 

• BeyondOilNYC Facebook page

• Forest Hills Green Team Facebook page

• The BeyondOilNYC blog page 
   

Contact me at danminer2345@gmail.com.

Recommended Reads:

Resilience.org, Richard Heinberg and PostCarbon Institute, and Albert Bates.

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2020 - Present
 

• Calling and texting for Democratic campaigns

• Property management, landscaping, and PT work in the hospitality industry
   

2017 - 2020

• Social distancing, and calling and texting for Democratic campaigns.

• Assisting with the installation of energy and water conservation upgrades at NYC public housing projects until the lockdown in spring 2020.

• Sales and business development for LED lighting upgrades of buildings.

• Volunteer projects with 350NYC.org included setting up community forums promoting the NYC Retrofit Accelerator and the proposed Community Climate Protection Act. 

• Volunteer projects with Forest Hills Green Team have included reactivating the school garden at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, starting a school garden at Forest Hills High School, and landscaping the Yellowstone Overpass area.

• Texting and canvassing for the 2018 elections.  .

2016

• From January to July  I worked at Sustainable South Bronx, doing community outreach in the Bronx for the home energy upgrade program of NYSERDA, the NY State energy agency.  I completed the Building Analyst certification from Building Performance Institute. I chose not to renew my contract and walked out of the 9-5 world.

• Traveled to Tennessee to visit with Albert Bates, starting an exploration of how NYC waste streams could be turned into biochar.  

2013 - 2015

• Served as district manager for Manhattan Community Board 6. 

• Volunteered with the Transition movement, the community resilience method founded by Rob Hopkins.  Helped set up a Rockaways resilience festival which brought together local advocates and citywide sustainability programs.

The Long Island City years 
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• I worked at Long Island City Partnership, an economic development nonprofit serving LIC, from 1999 to 2013. As a program manager, I promoted services, organized events, and assisted constituents. During that time, I was able to weave in a number of green projects for businesses, while pursuing a series of green volunteer projects.  

• Co-wrote green guide for business operations distributed to LIC businesses. 

• Prepared users guide to the City's white roof painting program, recruiting over 20 building owners.  

• Created and carried out a Long Island City Partnership (LICP) campaign for Con Ed’s free energy survey for businesses.  45% of LICP contacts referred to Con Ed purchased recommended equipment upgrades, compared to 23% of LIC businesses contacted by contractors alone, and to the City-wide average rate of 15%. Community organizations can be valuable ambassadors for sustainability programs - if they are supporters of the mission - or have a financial incentive - which is usually not the case.

Volunteer projects
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• In the early 2000s many writers and activists. led by Post Carbon Institute and Resilience.org, were concerned that the world's supplies of inexpensive, easily extracted fossil fuels were running low, and as we had to turn to sources that were more expensive and difficult to extract, as well as more dangerous and more polluting, fuel prices and supplies would become more volatile.  I organized a Meetup group and several events concerned with this issue.  

• In 2008 I published the report on this site, on preparing NYC for volatility in fuel price and supply, recommending revision of all City planning and budgeting decisions to include scenarios of higher energy costs and create contingency plans for price spikes.  Similar parallel reports were published by cities of San Francisco, CA and Portland OR.

• Around that time, fracking for gas and shale oil suddenly emerged, which for many people dispelled any concern about resource depletion.  However, the abundance of these new fuel supplies is very temporary.  The underlying resource depletion problem has only been delayed.   

• The climate crisis, resource depletion, and our increasingly fragile economy and political system are all different symptoms of our addiction to infinite growth on a finite planet.  Since the sensible responses to all of the symptoms are the same, and the climate crisis is visible to reality-based people and is impacting first, that is the most useful frame for discussion today.
   

• I chaired Sierra Club's NYC Group from 2008-10, and organized events, created publications, and recruited new board members.  My effort to reform the dysfunctional group did not succeed, but was finally vindicated by the SC National Board in 2016.