Big Apple Going Green?

New York City, the Big Apple, is going green.

In a green vision extravaganza on Earth Day in New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out a blindingly ambitious 25-year plan to turn New York into America's urban green giant by 2030.

A million new trees, green rooftops, new parks, an eight dollar a day access fee to cut cars coming into the city, energy taxes, emission cuts, new mollusk beds to clean the rivers around Manhattan.

"If not now, when?" asked the mayor.

This hour On Point: the global push for green cities.

Quotes from the Show:

"If this plan is achieved, it would continue a trend that has already been in place." Thomas Lueck

"The buildings will have to be designed differently. ...That's where 70 or 80 percent of the emissions are coming from. ... It's going to be a combination of incentives and requirements." Ashok Gupta

"We have to really build infrastructure for the 21st century and the 22nd century." Steven Cohen

"There is a growing recognition that cities have to be the solution to global environment problems. ... New York is not alone but the comprehensive nature of the plan that Mayor Bloomberg has put forward is quite impressive." Timothy Beatley

Guests:

Thomas Lueck, reporter, New York Times

Ashok Gupta, Program Director of Air and Energy, Natural Resources Defense Council. He is a member of Mayor Bloomberg's Sustainability advisory board, which came up with the plan to make New York greener.

Steven Cohen, Executive Director, Earth Institute at Columbia University, which as part of its mission looks at urban growth and its impact on the environment.;
Timothy Beatley, Professor of Sustainable Communities at University of Virginia School of Architecture and author of "Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities."